IMO cr*p and crap are both valid but separate swear words. People have a wide option to choose from when they want to swear, and people like variety (much much more than LLMs do). People also tend to influence each other with their usages: cr*p is popular because it is popular.

Otherwise cr*p is just as good as crap, shit, horseshit, poopoo or such.

edit: * replaced with \* as HN interprets asterisks as formatting for emphasis. Thx latexr for informing me

To use a literal asterisk on HN, do ** or \*. Your single usage in two places instead turned the majority of the post italic.