Good question. I wondered the same, so I decided to go back and watch some vlogs from the year I started watching Adam daily, which was 2016. He was living in Anaheim, had just broken up with Madame the Woo (who'd been living with him there during 2015). By mid-2016 he had left Anaheim and went out on the road again. This certainly has touches of ridiculous word usage, but it certainly seems more real, honest and open than anything he does today:
Look at this random Disneyland vlog from April 2016. Focus on the first 6.5 mins of him and Micah (before he was "World of Micah") - the rest of it is him talking about the state of YouTube and creators at the time (but even that his attitude and energy seem much better than today).
Look at the crisp editing, the pacing, the energy, the noticeable lack of over-explaining and reading every sign he sees:
And sometimes back then, he would take on unusual subjects he wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole today. Yes, the water bottle intro is annoying looking back at it, no way around that. But he asks how the audience is doing, makes an effort to make it seem like he's having an actual dialog with the viewers, would even sign off by saying he loves the audience, he has energy, and the topic is unusual and interesting:
Nowadays he is jaded, guarded, low energy, and lazy. It's like he's doing the audience a favor by letting them in on his "adventures" and he can barely stand to document it for them, other than the fact that their watching finances it all. This combined with the deep ruts he's made with the same content over and over again, the First Class, DVC, baseball seats in the first few rows, and his combative stance in the comments, well, I can't blame us for watching him back in the day or for laying into him now.
Final Thought: when I started watching Adam I had no idea how old he was. He didn't look that old, and based on what was going on in his life in his videos I assumed he was in his 30s, maybe even early 30s and looked a little old. Looking back, he turned 42 the year he made that "Things Don't Work Out" video, crying on the couch about his lost girlfriend. 42yo! It's just bizarre he was doing stuff like that in his late 30s and early 40s and seems to have transitioned to an unhappy, lonely person approaching 50 even though he has his DVC and first class and lives in his dream town of Celebration.