Web Video / Point Culture

Point Culture is a French Web Video series created and hosted by LinksTheSun. Each episode focuses on a specific subject, often related to popular culture. Starting as a filler video between the release of two fan songs, the series quickly gained in popularity, and is now the most well-known series on Links' channel.

The series is co-hosted by Plectrum, a living plectrum, which provides cynical, mocking commentary on Links' narration and jokes, along with some helpful clarifications and corrections. Starting with the episode on Disney, he was joined by Ouki, another character which provides commentary from a more childlike, innocent point of view.

Each episode was initially divided in three parts: the first two served to present the subject at hand, while the third was a list of 20 things related to said subject ; for instance, the episode on zombies first two parts focused on the cultural origins and the definition of zombies, while the third listed 20 ways to survive a zombie attack. Starting with the episode on the best Joker adaptation, the formula was reworked: the first two parts were removed, and the videos now focus on a specific line of thought rather than a subject as a whole.

Episode list

• Point Culture on Zombies
• Point Culture on Werewolves
• Point Culture on Metal
• Point Culture on Pokémon
• Point Culture on Jack the Ripper
• Point Culture on Geeks
• Point Culture on Humor
• Point Culture on Pornography
• Point Culture on Christmas
• Point Culture on Super Heroes
• Point Culture on God
• Point Culture on Video Games
• Point Culture on House
• Point Culture on Death
• Point Culture on Memes
• Point Culture on Disney
• Point Culture on Mangas (April Fools video)
• Point Culture on Cats
• Point Culture on Horror Movies
• Point Culture on Web Video
• Point Culture on Astronomy
• Point Culture on Facebook
• Point Culture on Ghosts
• Point Culture on Dinosaurs
• Point Culture on Pokémon 2
• Point Culture on Mangas (April Fools video)
• Point Culture on Fear
• Point Culture on Batman
• Point Culture on Minecraft (performed live)
• Point Culture: The best Joker
• Point Culture: Mangas (April Fools video)
• Point Culture: Introduction to Classical Music
• Point Culture: Disney Villains
• Point Culture: Pokémon from Real Life
• Point Culture: Serial Killers
• Point Culture on Mangas 4 (April Fools video)
• Point Culture: Cryptids
• Point Culture: LinksTheSun (1 million, subscribers celebration)
• Point Culture: Pirates
• Point Culture: Fan Theories on Movies
• Point Culture: Torture
• Point Culture: Super-Hero Movie Tropes
• Point Culture: Creepypasta (Halloween Special)^note actually about the SCP Foundation
• Point Culture: Figures of Speech
• Point Culture: Human Body
• Point Culture: Mythological Creatures^note Classical Mythology only
• Point Culture: Spider-Man Villains
• Point Culture: Veganism
• Point Culture: Flags^note National flags only
• Point Culture on Pokémon 3^note about Real Life inspiration (plants, animals, or various mythologies and folklores) of the Pokémon series
• Point Culture: Horror Movies' Clichés
• Point Culture: Introduction to Philosophy^note two-parters
• Point Culture: Movie Genres
• Point Culture: Pokémon Plants from Real Life
• Point Culture: Sherlock Holmes's best adaptation^note Compairison of twenty specific points in six series adaptation (four live-action and two anime) which drastically change some aspects of the Sherlock Holmes canon (Elementary, Sherlock, House, Miss Sherlock, Sherlock Hound, and Moriarty the Patriot)
• Point Culture: Clichés in Disney movies

Point Culture provides examples of:

• Affectionate Nickname: When Links presents Schopenhauer in the second Philosophy video, he nicknames the man "Schoupi" (in homage to kids book series T'choupi) to present his philosophy in a lighter way, as it can seem depressing for newcomers.
• And I Must Scream: At the start of the Sherlock Holmes video, Plectrum panics as he and Ouki were stuck in a state between life and death during the 19 months hiatus where Links didn't make any Point Culture. When called, Ouki is the middle of a Madness Mantra:
  Ouki: He has forsaken us. He has forsaken us. He has forsaken us.
  Plectrum: There, are you happy?
  Links: Ouki, at the end of the video, I give you candy.
  Ouki: Sweet, I love candy!
• April Fools: The episode on Mangas, released every year on April Fools, which always turns out to be Bait-and-Switch.
• Bathos:
  • The Torture episode is full of these, as Links has to present various torture devices and techniques while maintaining his edutainment formula. A good example is when he presents impalement and imagines how catechism classes would have traumatized him as a child had it happened to Jesus:
    Teacher: Mrs Breut, it seems your son isn't paying attention enough in classes.
    Young Links: Jesus has died for my sins. Jesus has died for my sins. Jesus has died for my sins.
    Teacher: Mr Alexis Breut, please stop crying in the corner of the room.
  • The Philosophy episode tries to present philosophers who focused on human existence in a lighthearted way. For example, when he presents Blaise Pascal, Links takes a solemn voice to read the philosopher's most Angsty passages while zooming on his portrait, then brutally "interrupts" him by faking enthusiasm.
• Black Dude Dies First: Invoked at the end of the Horror Movies' clichés episode, when he points that this specific trope hasn't been analysed in the video.
• The Cameo: The episode about the human body has Maestro from Il Était Une Fois... la Vie (voiced by the original voice actor) reacting to Links' commentary along Plectrum and Ouki.
• Captain Obvious: The episode on Facebook gives examples of deep messages such as "Evil is worse than good, so why be evil?" or "You only have one mother in life, and it's your mom".
• Cheerful Child: Ouki's raison d'etre.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Links himself can be this depending on the subject.
  • In the Philosophy episode, he describes Auguste Comte's positivist philosophy in a positive light, then he rattles quickly about the way he transformed his school of thought into a religion which he proclaimed himself the prophet and took a rather... crazy direction^note Links' Parenthese video mentions that he planned to make cows eat meat to make them progress and make humanity progress by eating them, and make women reproduce by themselves, illustrating these by a cuckoo clock.
• Conspiracy Theorist: When talking about paranormal phenomena, Links can easily fall into this for viewers' pleasure.
  • In the Ghosts epiosde, he tries to find a connection between the Amityville horror and ghosts:
    "It's the story of the DeFeo family who buys a house in Amityville. Everything goes right for a decade, then one night, the eldest son Ronald Jr. takes a big bowl of cereal, a glass of orange juice, daddy's shotgun, and blows up the faces of his two parents, two brothers and two sisters. It makes 222^note  2 and 2 and 2, but the story happened in 1974, but 1 + 9 + 7 + 4 = 21, 2 +1 = 3, and 222 x 3 = 666, the number of the yeast- of the beast! But it's not over: in 1975, the Lutz family moves into the house and hears voices every night; the father George Lutz wakes up at 3:15, the hour of the killing, after nightmares: but 1 + 5 = 6, and 6 three times equals 666, but it's not over! If you take the name of the father, G. Lutz, and replace the letters by their position in the alphabet, you get 7 12 21 20 26: but 21 x 20 = 210^note Links shows and says 240, but he counts like it's 210, 210 / 12 = 35^note divided by 6, actually, but the joke wouldn't work otherwise, 26 - 7 = 19, and 35 x 19 = 665! Shit! *Inelegant Blubbering* All my theory is fucked up! *Inelegant Blubbering* Well, give up on that, Amityville is bullshit."
  • In the episode on Cryptids, Links "proves" that all of his fellow YouTube video creators are actually reptilians. Including himself. "Who am I, Really...?" Someone must have not gotten the memo about their master plan...
• Crossover: Links teamed up with Joueur du Grenier and sizefac in the episode on Video Games, and with Mathieu Sommet and Tranber in the episode on Web Video.
• Deadpan Snarker: Plectrum usually fulfills this role regarding Links commentary.
• Disney Villain Death: Noted to be "the most common cliché" in the villain death song, citing Queen Narissa, Mother Gothel, Zira, Frollo, Tiberius, Ratigan and the Evil Queen from Snow White as such among others.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Plectrum is... well guess.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The earlier episodes of the Point Culture were more made for laughs rather than for seriously teaching and Links didn't put much research into them. However, as of 2013 (the 2012 Astronomy episode being a prototype in these regards), he started to put more research and effort into this series to make it actually edutaining.
• Foreshadowing: The Ghosts episode has moments where the montage becomes crazy, hinting that the video itself may be haunted.
• Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Plectrum and Ouki start speaking with voice acting of their own in the Point Culture on Real Life Plant Pokemons. Actually, both briefly speak in the intro skit to the ghost video, it seems Links also has forgotten (at least In-Universe) that Plectrum used to speak in his short-lived "Plectroscope" series.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
  • The Ghosts episode ends on Links' old videos accusing the viewers of having caused their decay since he focused on Point Culture.
  • Inverted in the episode on Dinosaurs, in which one of the viewers manages to shoot Links through the video.
  • The Fear episode has one at the start of the video which, surprisingly, is Played for Laughs instead of horror:
    "In fact, I've remarked contradictions in your behavior. Yes, you, the person watching this video, you who are scratching your [walls] thinking I can't see you."
  • In the Torture episode, Links does this when presenting White Torture: he quickly drops the Powerpoint presentation to put the white room on full screen, then transits to a simple white background. To make things worse, the viewer has to hear creepy noises and visual hallucinations^note Bruce Benamran smug smiling to feel how sensory deprivation affects these who are locked in, and how this never leaves them after they're freed.
• Hurricane of Puns: The episode on Astronomy ends on a song in which Links attempts to insert twenty Puns on the theme of planets and other astronomical objects. The result is as facepalm-inducing as one can imagine.
• Hypocritical Humor: In the Cats video, Links considers that compared to dogs, when you see a cat, you don't wonder if it's something else than a cat... before comparing the Chartreux to a bowling ball and the Sphynx to a hybrid between a rat, a rabbit and an alien.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • The Cats episode has plenty of these:
    • Links tries to prove cats are evil because... they have mustaches^note he's actually referering to whiskers, which are commonly refered as mustaches for pets in French. Then he shows pictures of controversial historical figures... before showing a picture of the devil, Dick Dastardly, Darth Vader with a mustache, himself, Joueur du Grenier, and Anne Roumanoff... who doesn't even have facial hair!
    • Later, Links tries to prove that Bill Clinton, Charles de Gaulle and Margaret Thatcher were slaves of their pet cats in a unique way:
      "If you change a letter in Clinton, it makes Clanton; if you replace De Gaulle's letters by their position in the alphabet, you get 45 71 21 12 125; and if you spell Margaret Thatcher's name in reverse, you have Rehctaht Teragram... which has absolutely no connection with cats! They know how to cover their tracks."
  • In the Web Video episode:
    "Facebook backwards spells 'Koobecaf', which makes no sense, so Facebook makes no sense, QED."
• Jump Scare:
  • The Ghosts episode has two moments where the montage becomes crazy, the visual and audio glitch at the end of the video, and the ghost scream seconds later.
  • The Dinosaurs episode has the moment where someone tries to shoot Links across the video, and later, the T-Rex roar is used twice to mock people who complained about the screamer above.
• Magical Profanity Filter: The Fear video has a swear filter which replaces every curse with a similarly spelled word.
  "Don't worry, in this video, you shouldn't be afraid by anything, except if you are a big [hoodie]"
• Metaphorgotten: In the episode on Cats, Links attempts to describe the Chartreux breed of cats, but gets a little... sidetracked.
  Links: A Chartreux sort of looks like a bowling ball, except it doesn't have any holes to throw it... Well, I guess you could still enucleate your cat, but that's taking it a bit far. You'd need a surgery room, or ask a veterinarian, and I doubt he'd accept... Except a clandestine veterinarian, in need of money, that would work off the books... Which gets risky, as not only is it illegal, not to mention it raises the question of morality, though some people don't have a choice when it comes to working off the books, like those who fled from a totalitarian country or a civil war, things like that. Like Zimbabwe, since the arrival of Mugabe... Anyway, as long as Mugabe is in power, you won't be able to play bowling with your Chartreux.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: One of the tropes analysed in Horror Movies' clichés. Links eventually concludes that doing actually increases the cast's survival probability (as Never Split the Party could potentially result in the threat wiping out the whole party at once).
• List Song: Twice, to the theme of the song of countries in Animaniacs, first about how parents die in disney movies and then how villains die.
• Never Trust a Title:
  • The episode named "Pokémon from Real Life" has nothing to do with Pokémon; it's actually about bizarre animal species.
  • Likewise, "Pokémon Plants from Real Life" isn't about Pokemon but about weird plants and fungi.
• Noodle Incident:
  • In the episode on Web Video, Tranber is not sure what happened last night...
    Phone: Hello, this is the local police station. It appears you are the one who organized the party last night. We found fourteen of your guests naked in a municipal fountain with foam, a megaphone and three inflatable dolls. Got an explanation?
    Tranber: Right, right, explanations, sure, there are explanations, err...
  • In the Cryptids episode, Future Links tells his present self that denying the existence of dragons and unicorns made him the target of integrists who've been harassing him for 32 years, and that the whole world became crazy since Super Mario became president of the world in 2035 to prevent any Cult of Personality. Future Plectrum being alone also suggests that recognizing the reality of fictional characters caused the disappearance of Ouki, but he refuses to give more details.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: When listing the various gadgets used by the Joker in the 1966 Batman series, he insists on the fact that no, he is not making those up.
  Links: "A coil bomb. A giant spring. His own utility belt. A paralyzing gas. A hot-dog walkie-talkie. A gel that turns people into surfboards, I SWEAR IT'S TRUE. A time-manipulating device. An hypnotizing box. A man-sized key duplicator. Poisoned urchin stingers. Concentrate strawberry jam. I SWEAR HE HAS A MAN-SIZED KEY DUPLICATOR.
• Ominous Message from the Future: In the Cryptids episode, Future Links comes back from the future to warn his present self that he has been chased by "unicornians" and "dragonheads" for 32 years, all because he said unicorns an dragons didn't exist. Apparently, the world went kind of insane after Super Mario became president of the world. Also, future Plectrum is still as ugly, and Ouki... disappeared in conditions Plectrum doesn't want to tell his present self. Apparently, he's also a Basement-Dweller who used his mother's laundry machine to travel through time.
• Orphaned Punchline: In the Classical Music episode, Links illustrates how Richard Wagner was a rather funny guy with this line:
  "And then, Schopenhauer tells Nietzsche: it's not by consecrating art as the expression of the will of power that you will contemplate the world as a representation! (laughs) Lmao!"
• Our Ghosts Are Different: He spends a video explaining it.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Same as above.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: In the video on stylistic devices, at the end of a speech in which he highlights the devices used in his own narration.
  Links: [...] and need I remind that it's extremely clumsy to conclude on a rhetorical question?
• Running Gag:
  • The "Shitty Joke" Alert, triggered by Links' pathetic puns, is usually followed by Plectrum doing some sort of dance in order to distract the viewers from the joke.
  • For four consecutive years, on April 1st, Links released an episode on Mangas. The episode never started proper, instead consisting of something like the intro looping or Links going on a tangent for a whole 20 minutes.
  • The Cryptids episode shows a jar where Links puts a coin in the hole every time his remark could make an easy joke about the length of the penis.
  • In the Mythological Creatures episode, Links concludes several entries by stating that "Heracles is a piece of shit", illustrated by a picture of a cross-eyed Hercules flexing his muscles.
  • "J'aime les stats" (I love statistics) which, in french, sounds like "I love Lestat", hence a visual pun involving a photo of a certain Anne Rice character as he appears in Queen of the Damned.
  • The Sherlock Holmes Adaptations episode has Links constantly butchering Benedict Cumberbatch name's pronunciation, each time in a different way.
• Self-Deprecation: A great deal of his jokes are at his own expense.
• Serious Business: During the Philosophy two-parter, Links abords determinism under the prism of... who puts jam on his toasts. First, while presenting Spinoza's philosophy, he makes the thinker say that it's God who put jam on his toasts because it's part of his plan; second, when presenting Nietzsche's "God Is Dead" philosophy, he wonders who will put jam on his toasts, and that the man himself would answer "You!"^note It's not an assumption of free will, as Nietzsche considered this as a ruse of the weak to make the strong guilty and deprive them from their will of power, but that even if Links is determined to put jam on his toasts, this would be an expression of his will of power... in Links' logic, at least; finally, when presenting Sartre's philosophy and how, unlike the former two, he values free will, Links proudly yells:
  Links: You heard that one, Baruch? I put jam on my toasts!
• Shown Their Work: Links is the first to remind his audience that he is no expert and that they should do more research, and to openly admit mistakes, yet he clearly worked his subjects and gets his facts right.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Invoked and Enforced in the video about Fear, to illustrate his point that creepy things need the right atmosphere to be unsettling. He shows creepy paintings by Francis Bacon with the Saw soundtrack, which is indeed creepy, then with Benny Hill's Yakety Sax, which is... not.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The YouTube description and Facebook post for the episode on Creepypastas are very insistent on the fact that said episode isn't about the SCP Foundation. It is. In-Universe, his motive is to make sure the Foundation doesn't watch the video (which doesn't work, since the video itself ends up heavily edited).
• Sudden Downer Ending: The Ghosts episode ends on the video glitching where it was supposed to end (the last word being stuck before the last syllable), smashing the image to black and repeating the first sentence of the video under a loud breath... then the ghost girl Jump Scare comes and the video smashes to black again. After that, old Links videos are popping in a weird montage, then take a sinister voice to reveal they have been behind all the crazy things happening in this episode, threaten the viewers, and end the video on this version of Ring Around the Rosey.
• Swiper, No Swiping!: In the Facebook episode, Ouki gets inspired by a picture stating "Evil is worse than good, so why be evil?" as he was about to do something evil, and decides not to do it after all, as he didn't realize it'd be evil to do something evil.
• Take That, Audience!: To mock the viewers who challenged themselves to watch the Ghosts episode late at night in a dark room with earphones and got scared by the Screamer Prank, Links put a loud Jurassic Park (1993) T-Rex roar in the Dinosaurs episode: while the first was a surprise, the second was a Bait-and-Switch.
• Visual Pun: At one point in the first Philosophy video, the word "passion" appears onscreen. The letters are written with a passion fruit texture.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Links' and Plectrum's relationship in a nutshell.
• Wrongfully Attributed: As Albert Einstein said, "In science and art alike, it is necessary to check your sources before posting something on YouTube. #lmao".

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