Is it wrong that I hardly ever play e4 or d4 as white ??

If we are comparing it to languages then it depends on the languages. It's possible to study multiple languages at once, if one wishes to, and it makes it easier if they are related. Learning Spanish will give you some basis in Portuguese, Italian and French. Learning Russian will give you some basis in Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, etc.

Also no-one expects someone to have learned a language for 1-2 months and start speaking it perfectly. You have to start practising, improvising and learning from mistakes.

With openings, you can't be expected to memorise every single line in e4 or d4. If everyone could do that easily then chess would be closer to solved and it wouldn't be such a competition. No-one starts playing e4 or d4 because they memorised every line or play perfectly. Sometimes you have to improvise and think to figure things out.

I play Ruy Lopez, Najdorf, Open Sicilian and King's Indian. That's not because I know all the theory but because I enjoy those openings and learn by playing them. The opponents don't know any more theory than I do.

OP the reason you likely have more success with offbeats at your current level, or to be more precise at your opponents current level, is that in more mainstream stuff they play book moves, then when the book finishes, they play at their level. So in a sense the true level in tactics, positional understanding etc is put under the carpet because of the opening.

Not giving too much focus on the opening phase is right ando some offbeats can be fine and sound but tbh 1. e4 or 1. d4 will teach you more, after that you can go back to offbeats or playing a mix of mainstream and offbeats.

Perhaps play a small repertoire with 1.e4 ( or 1.d4 ) 1. e4 e5 and 1. d4 d5. Especially the open games are important to understand.

There are some good repertoire books which are actually very playable and they're just 200 pages long.

It's good to play a bit the open games and have some thematic pawn structures in your games.

any opening is fine as long as you have fun playing it

(and hopefully win more than 40% of your games)

just because the kings pawn and queens pawn openings are the "best" openings doesn't mean they're the only "good" openings. My favorite opening is the Réti Gambit (1. Nf3 d5 2. c4). You can also get a good position from the Kingside Fianchetto or Queenside Fianchetto openings.

Some openings I wouldn't recommend are the Bird's (1. f4), Polish (1. b4), Ware (1. a4), or Desprez (1. h4), among others.

Those openings, at least f4 and b4, arent for beginners though. I specialized in these moves a lot, and even according to a lot of great games Ive seen with f4, white has the advantage point slightly, but most of the great games end in a draw (which is still better than a loss)
I hate that gotham says f4 is bad, when it really isnt, people are just scared to play it because they are terrible players. f4, d4, b3, and b4 are the most aggressive first moves to me anyway.
B4 is the same, people are scared because if they dont know what they are doing, black will get the advantage, but I DO know what Im doing, so thats no excuse!
even against great chess players, its still effective as much as any other opening, again if played correctly.
H4 and a4 suck however yes

it's never recommended to move your f-pawn until the endgame, as it is an important defender of your king

levy is an im, i think he knows what he's talking about.

center control is an important part of the opening and middlegame in chess, b4 essentially sacrifices your first move to your opponent. F4 is not a commonly played first move because it weakens your kingside (by like, a lot) sure its not terrible but the most common usage of it is to take your opponent out of book

1.d4 however is a perfectly good starting move and can lead to many sound openings, I recommend you stick to it.

1.b3 is actually not horrible because unlike 1.b4 you dont extend a weak pawn out, and you can play like nc3 after or something

anyway, openings dont matter much till you become a high intermediate player or above, most games aside from those are decided by tactics and material blunders

Never listen to GothamChess. Just because he is an IM doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about. A lot of the stuff he says about openings is bs. There are other IMs, GMs and chess coaches who disagree with him.

He just made himself the face of youtube chess by being very loud and obnoxious.

OMG yes i know!! I watch ChessGiant for all my opening knowledge, and lots of other great ones too.

yeah but the bird is just bad.

its not a matter of opinion its just bad, there's a reason no one plays it at high level. if you want to take someone out of book the english is just a better flank opening

I completely disagree, but we are all entitled to think what we want, so thats fine. I see it as a very aggressive, and quick way to break into the kingside

the bird has a statistical win rate of 35%/25%/39% at high level. (it only adds up to 99 if you round the the nearest whole numbers... lol)

D4 however has a win statistic of 38%/33%/29%. so basically if you play 1.d4 you have a higher chance of drawing or winning and a lower chance of losing

but if you think 1.f4 is more fun, then by all means, keep playing it

if you want to play chess for fun, theres nothing wrong with that. but if you want to gain elo, i suggest avoiding the birds opening at all costs.

Well, yes i do want to be the best, (being that I want to get up to 2200) but I feel like for now it doesnt pose a threat for me at the moment. When I start to lose with it, I'll reevaluate, but that hasnt happened enough yet. think that goes for everyone, you dont keep trying a failing method

yeah that makes sense. dont fix it if it ain't broke i guess

Ah yeah, I like ChessGiant.

My favourite is ChessCoach Andras. He's also an IM and an absolute gem. No clickbait. No bs. Just quality chess educational content. He also knows how to make it fun and interesting.

The difference with Levy is that he constantly berates lower rated players for their poor play in a way which is very mocking and insulting. He's very patronising and lectures people about what openings to play based on what's simpler and easier "for lower rated players such as yourselves" but actually it's just the openings that he likes and plays himself. A lot of the openings he recommends are just plain bad. He refuses to teach or even help people with certain good openings because he doesn't like them personally.

Andras criticises players for their play, sometimes in a harsh way, but it comes from a place of real care and he really wants the best for the player. He is also willing to teach and explain anything about any opening. He recommends what people should play based on what's objectively good or instructive for the player. He encourages the best openings but provides simpler options for those who really prefer that. Some things will be based on his preferred style but he will mention that and try to provide the objective perspective.