No penalty for incorrect tags?

[Hazzador]

true, but there are less people searching for them

Small channels can come up in search engines if they use less competitive key words, tags, titles ect. Look at this image. It has only 166 results and my video is on the top search. My channel is still considered small with almost 3000 subscribers.

 

[just Moto]

true, but there are less people searching for them

It doesn't matter. You are small and it's one method that's going to help you grow.

Have a read of a thread on here called HOW TO: Get More Views by Targeting 'Long Tail'/Compound Keywords for Tags

 

[LyfeWithDragons]

Your best bet would be to use a keywords tool, or go search for a video similar to yours, and find one that is getting "realistic" views,and use some of the tags they are using.