Word.ws English Dictionary

sub4sub

sub4sub noun: on the video-sharing service YouTube, the practice of subscribing to a person's channel in exchange for said person mutually subscribing back to one's channel, often with the goal of artificially inflating one's subscriber count.

Noun

sub4sub (uncountable)

  1. (Internet) On the video-sharing service YouTube, the practice of subscribing to a person's channel in exchange for said person mutually subscribing back to one's channel, often with the goal of artificially inflating one's subscriber count.
    • Similar to those who subscribe to everyone, secretly hoping those users will subscribe back, we have the Sub4Sub^([sic]) users. Sub4Sub users blatantly tell you they will subscribe to you if you subscribe to them.2008, Alan Lastufka, Michael W. Dean, YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts, O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 170
    • @EdddyyTv I don't get how you're growing so fast? Got any tips? please don't say sub4sub though or i will cry haha2012 December 30, @AynsleyTravel, Twitter

Examples of sub4sub in a sentence

  • Sub4sub doesn't get you any actual viewers.2017 February 5, u/Asuko_XIII, “Can someone help me understand how sub4sub is bad?”, in r/letsplay, Reddit:
  • A video maker named Ontus (his YouTube channel name) was a white man who posted a video entitled sub4sub? on YouTube on March 28, 2008.2019, Patricia G. Lange, Thanks for Watching: An Anthropological Study of Video Sharing on YouTube, University Press of Colorado, →ISBN...
  • Requesting subscribers in exchange for subscribing to other channels, commonly known as "sub4sub," is a violation of YouTube's guidelines.2023, B. Vincent, YouTube Hacks: Secrets to Boost Your Views and Engagement, RWG Publishing, page 22:

Origin of sub4sub

Abbreviation of subscribe for a subscription back or a similar phrasing, otherwise analysable as sub (“a subscription”) + 4 (“abbreviation of for”) + sub (“a subscription”). Compare follow4follow.

Questions about sub4sub

What does sub4sub mean?
Sub4sub means on the video-sharing service YouTube, the practice of subscribing to a person's channel in exchange for said person mutually subscribing back to one's channel, often with the goal of artificially inflating one's subscriber count.
How do you use sub4sub in a sentence?
Sub4sub doesn't get you any actual viewers.
What part of speech is sub4sub?
Sub4sub is a noun.

Words near sub4sub in the dictionary

  1. sub-titler
  2. sub-tropical
  3. sub-tropicals
  4. sub-zero
  5. sub.
  6. sub4sub
  7. Suba
  8. Suba Poblacion
  9. Subabasbas
  10. subabbot
  11. subabbots

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sub4sub (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “sub4sub.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sub4sub. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.