Is the Nikon 1 J1 good for YouTube?

Could I suggest a Canon Vixia RF500 for $200 at best buy? It has:

* It's a camcorder, not a still camera with video added in.
* It has a flip-forward screen so you can vlog from the front but see the image
* It has a microphone jack

Get one of these, a tripod, and a self-powered microphone with a 12 ft cord and you have the basics of a decent YouTube setup.

None of the Nikon 1 series are good for anything. They trade portability for sensor size, and pray hard you won't see beyond the Nikon label.

It's a digital camera made to capture images. Video is only a feature and sound is only an option. If you wanted better quality videos, use a digital camcorder.

The quality will be very similar to the J3 since they have the same size sensor and implement the same resolution and fps.

None of the J series have an external mic jack, so the sound will never be high quality. You can fix this in post processing with an external audio recorder.

Like all cameras that are basically a still camera, the video recording will be OK, but just not up to the standards of a camcorder. Since the image is 1080, pixelation is not a problem.

Ran a comparison of the specs of all the J series and share it with you.
http://www.dpreview.com/products/compare/side-by-side?products=nikon_j1&products=nikon_j2&products=nikon_j3&products=nikon_j4&products=nikon_j5

The sound will be poor, so you most definitely need a mic if it has mic inputs. If not, then you'll need a separate audio recorder and dub the audio over the video in post.
HD video only requires about 2MP, so any camera can shoot HD video. You will not have to worry about any camera producing pixelated video unless you plan on cropping/zooming into the video. The image will be fine for youtube, but if you will get a clearer image by replacing the kit lens with something better. The J1 has a pixel size that is about 10x larger than a typical smart phone, so it will produce much better video than a smartphone, but you will still want a well-lit room to prevent having to use too high of an ISO and having video noise.

The video should be more than good enough for YouTube. Here's a link to show you the image quality of the J1: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/studio-compare?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=mainmenu&utm_medium=text&ref=mainmenu#baseDir=%2Freviews_data&cameraDataSubdir=boxshot&indexFileName=boxshotindex.xml&presetsFileName=boxshotpresets.xml&showDescriptions=false&headerTitle=Studio%20scene&headerSubTitle=Standard%20studio%20scene%20comparison&masterCamera=nikon_j1&masterSample=dsc_1006&slotsCount=4&slot0Camera=nikon_j1&slot0Sample=dsc_1006&slot0DisableCameraSelection=true&slot0DisableSampleSelection=true&slot0LinkWithMaster=true&slot1Camera=canon_s110&slot1Sample=img_0024&x=0.10200678090350958&y=0.6464210371387921

Just keep in mind that the J1 was not a successful camera for Nikon as it received a lot of poor reviews. There are a lot of much better cameras out there than the J1, for sure, but the question is: Is it good enough for what YOU want to do with it? Only you can answer that question.