Web Video / Salut Les Geeks

Salut Les Geeks ("Hello geeks") is a French YouTube series hosted by Mathieu Sommet. Like What the Cut, it can be considered a French equivalent of =3, since it reviews/makes fun of weird videos from all over the internet.

The show's uniqueness comes from the host's Split Personality, making him assume different identities (the Geek, the Hippie, the Boss, the Professor, the Panda, and the Girl) reacting in their own ways and even discussing with each other for maximum comedic effect.

The weekly nature of the show allows it to follow actualities and even interact with its audience during its Science Infuse and Instant Panda segments.

Starting from September 2014, the show got a monthly "sister show" of sorts, appropriately titled "L'Envers du Décor (Read: Behind the Scenes"). In addition to showing how Mathieu makes his main show, it also includes bloopers, and FAQ segments where Mathieu answers some of his fans' questions.

Mathieu stopped the series on December 2016, justifying his decision due to being bored about the series as a whole.

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Salut Les Geeks provides examples of the following tropes:

• Aborted Arc: The end of the series, and the mystery about the user and Jeanne. It seems that having sort of written himself into a corner was one of the reasons Mathieu stopped the show.
• Ascended Extra: Master Panda initially appeared in short musical sequences from time to time. He eventually gets his own sequence in each episodes since the beginning of the fourth season.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: When the split personalities are separated as individual programs after their mutual body is killed, Mathieu seems to find them a lot easier to be around and calls them his friends on several occasions.
• The Backwards Я: "L'Instant Panda" #87 is a pastiche of Soviet patriotic music with lyrics subtitled this way.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: The Boss can prove to be quite intimidating, threatening or even dangerous, like when he evades from prison with seemingly no effort, and of course he always wears his business suit and his sunglasses.
• Bad "Bad Acting": When Default!Mathieu tries to replace the Boss after he's arrested.
• Backstory of the Day: Upon reviewing a video of a little girl reacting to her very first hunting kill, Mathieu says that they leaned more towards mushroom gathering in his family. Hallucinogenic shrooms, to be exact. The hippie's hat is then revealed to be a keepsake from his grandfather.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The masked man commits suicide, sure, but he did manage to accomplish his objective of taking Mathieu and Dr. Frederick with him.
• Bambification: Subverted. One episode has the cast being horrified by a video of a deer eating a bird.
• Brain Uploading : Basically how Matthieu "survived" the finale of season 5 : his mind got uploaded by an unknown benefactor on Internet.
• The Bus Came Back: When Mathieu tries to get himself in the spirit of the earlier seasons.
  The Girl: Yay, I'm back!
  • Invoked in the last episode ever released: the team spends the first third of the episode looking for the long gone character of the Man with the Tie, because Mathieu gets asked about him at every convention. The meeting is awkward, because Mathieu doesn't want him back on the show, and the Man with the Tie doesn't care to say anything to the audience.
  The Man with the Tie: Welp, see you in five years.
• Butt-Monkey: The Geek persona. Mathieu himself is a geek and his show is intended for a geeky audience, but his Geek side is portrayed as a whiny virgin, although he doesn't really do or say anything stupid or mean, he's just naive and a bit dimwitted, but everyone seems to hate him, especially Mathieu's default persona.
• The Cast Show Off: Mathieu jumps at the occasion to sing quite often. Unless he's intentionally singling badly, his singing and lyrics tend to be a lot better than most music clips he reviews.
• Catchphrase: Said at the start of every episode.
  Mathieu: What's new on the web? Let's go check it out right now!
  • The Professor has "It's a very good question !" and "You see, it's simple...", the Hippie has : "You took too much [drugs], dude !" and the Boss has only a catch word : calling everybody "Kiddo".
• Characterization Marches On: When they initially appeared, the Boss and the Geek were respectively a cynical businessman and a trollish Deadpan Snarker.
• Continuity Nod: In episode 87, the Hippie happily claims that he got a door to make jokes about in relation to a video. In episode 90, as Mathieu acknowledges that his argument is kicking down an open door (=beating a dead horse), he illustrates the idiom by acting it out. Cue the Hippie complaining about the treatment to his door.
• Cool Shades: The Boss wears these. Can overlap with Sinister Shades, given his personality.
• Crossover: Several of the personalities appear in an episode of Minute Papillon (another humourous French Youtube series), which is set in the catacombs. It includes the Professor finding the Girl's skull and the Boss being revealed to be Satan himself.
• Darker and Edgier: Starting from the final episode of season 4, the show introduces a rather serious narrative at the end of the episodes, culminating in the finale of season 5.
• Defiant to the End: Whenever Mathieu is threatened, the Boss is the personality that comes out to taunt his oponent, be it Dr Frederick trying to supress the personalities via SPD treatment or Maxime holding a gun to Mathieu's head.
  The Boss: Kill me if you can, Doc.
• Demoted to Extra: In the fourth season, the Scientist from La Science Infuse lost his own sequence in the end of each episode, replaced by Master Panda musical segment. He still appears from time to time to make goofy pseudo-scientifical comments.
• Distracted by the Sexy: All the personalities save for the Professor are agape while watching Japanese Word of the Week, a canceled Youtube series about learning Japanese whose host was Miss Hannah Minx, a YouTuber who was known for her peculiar style (high-angle shots, tight clothes and very ample cleavage):
  Mathieu: "And her shirt is what the fuuuuuuuuuck ?!'"
  Geek: "Boobies !"
  Hippie: "Duuuuuuuuuuuuh !"
  Boss: *looks at his crotch while a "Ding" sound is heard* "Turkey's done, kiddo."
• Double Take:
  Geek: My New Year resolutions are to stop being whiny, stop having low self-confidence [...], and stop using our Facebook account to ask girls for pictures of their boobs.
  Mathieu: *reading a newspaper* Yeah, yeah, that's ni- Wait what.
  *opening starts but stops after a few seconds*
  Mathieu: What the fuck did you just say?!
  *opening starts again but gets cut a second time*
  Mathieu: I'm gonna kill you!
• Dumb Blonde: One of the personality was labeled "the Girl", but she didn't stay very long. He acknowledged that it would come as sexist, and had trouble writing for this role, whereas the others came naturally to him. However, in several instances, she's a lot sharper than her male co-personalities, like when she points out that the subject of a video is using a curling iron, which all the guys assumed was a dildo.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first few episodes had a different opening, there wasn't the Split Personality (the first "Science Infuse" is in the second episode, the question is answered by Mathieu as himself), Mathieu wore the same clothes for the entire episode, spoke slowly, and the background was a white wall with a tv and a laptop. When they appeared a bit later, the split personalities weren't as defined as they are now.
• Eye Scream: The Boss apparently hides occular piercings under his sunglasses.
• Hypocritical Humor: In one episode, the video reviewed is this ad, in which a baker has hallucinations featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Among his comments of the ad, he says this:
  Mathieu: Nobody is thinking about the starting madness of our baker? Because I am pretty sure that when you see people who don't exist you are starting to become mad, and at this point of the sentence I feel it applies to me.
• Important Haircut:
  • The Girl is delighted about getting a new blonde wig. No one else cares.
  • Mathieu's head is shaven while he's in the mental hospital. The personalities are furious.
• Ironic Name: Jeanne, the AI that accompanies Mathieu through season 6. Her name is a reference to Joan of Arc, which is somewhat confirmed by her invoking the meme of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen loudly and unpromptedly screaming "Jeanne! Help us!" in public during a news segment. One of her functions is being a firewall.
  Jeanne: I am Jeanne. Help me, that name is so lame.
• Lighter and Softer: Black Comedy aside, it is generally this compared to What the Cut.
• Motor Mouth: The host keeps speaking faster as the show goes.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Bit Personality of episode 101 is The Dandy, with an annoying aristocratic accent and a lot of cheerful disdain. His mannerisms were inspired by journalist Stéphane Bern, and called Stéphane Burne after him ("burne" being colloquial for "testicle").
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: The host spend five minutes bashing that a guy who believes you can rape girls "softly" and that they secretly want to be raped.It's also one of the few moments he doesn't use use sarcasm or joke about what he said.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: According to one of the "Scoence Infuse" sequences, the Pokemon (who are said to really exist) have been invented in 1948 by a Mad Scientist who was a former Indian Nazi Communist Cannibal.
• Older Than They Look: The Geek
  Geek: I did the splits when I was thirteen, and since then I'm sterile and have a high voice.
  Mathieu: ... How old are you right now?
  Geek: Forty-three, why do you ask?
• Ominous Music Box Tune: In #84, one of the videos reviewed is a praise of cosmetic surgery, which ends with some creepy "join us" whisper. Mathieu reacts with a sequence imagining a dystopian future in which cosmetic surgery became mandatory; a scene (a controller visits Mathieu to remind him he still didn't perform the mandatory surgery) is set to such a tune.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the season 4 finale, the personialities start not rising to obvious bait during the commentary section, which confuses Mathieu. It's because they are being suppressed by Dr Frederick's split personality disorder treatment.
• Put on a Bus: The Boss was once arrested by the cops after Mathieu got fed up by his antics... Only to escape prison in the following episode and killing the Professor and Mathieu just after that.
  "Honey, I'm home !" *cocks his gun* "Hope you missed me, bitch !"
• Rape as Comedy: Mathieu himself is clearly against rape, as seen when he reviews Mister X's speech about "soft rape", but it doesn't stop his Boss persona from being a shameless sex offender and having a very questionable sens of humor. He often mentions his many "feats" or fetishes, even though the other personas try their best to interrupt or censor him before it becomes too dark or creepy. He even rapes the Geek in a dark basement at one point, however that works, and Default!Mathieu doesn't really seem to care.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: To a guy who believes all women secretly want to be raped and gives tips.
  Mathieu: So Mr X, you wanted to give your opinion? So let me give you mine. Your simplistic views are dangerous and stupid and we all can see through your st-st-stuttering that you know stricly nothing about relationships. I don't know whether you are ignorant, crazy or mentally challenged, but in all cases, you're justifying a crime. The next time you want to give your opinion about a subject, speak about something you know, like your behavior therapy. Meanwhile, you may turn your camera off, leave your PC and shut up.
• Remember the New Guy? : In the final episode of season 4, it is revealed that Doctor Frederick, whose job was to cure Mathieu of his Split Personality Disorder, was actually present in every episode, but that Mathieu wasn't able to see him due to being mentally sick. Cue a montage of clips from old episodes where Doctor Frederick, taking notes, is added via a green screen.
• The Reveal:
  • In the season 4 finale, we learn than he was interned in an asylum several months earlier in order to cure him for his split personality disorder. As an early step for his (unsuccessful) therapy, he lived in an exact replica of his flat, complete with all his toys and stuff. He created season 4 in a Bedlam House.
  • In the season 5 finale, we finally learn who the mysterious masked man is. He's Maxime Lassault, a young billionaire whose teenage sister was Driven to Suicide after people kept making fun of her for being seen on the show. This drove him insane and made him hellbent on taking revenge on Mathieu.
• Self-Deprecation : Regarding its "competition" with What the Cut, apparently. In a late episode of season 4, during a (fake) FAQ where a fan asks him how it feels to have less subscribers than Antoine Daniel, Matthieu flips his shit and threatens said fan before asking for another question. And then, in a skit during episode 100, Matthieu can be seen wearing a "I prefer What the Cut anyway" T-shirt.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: The Boss, it would help to hide the hide the fact that he's an utter pervert if it wasn't for his behavior.
• The Smurfette Principle: The Girl, Mathieu's only female personality. She was eventually cut out due to the Unfortunate Implications of this trope.
• Spear Carrier: Minor personalities appear every once in a while in an episode, such as the Monk (to dicuss religion and/or purity culture), the Nazi (to discuss fascism), Ronald McDonald (to discuss capitalism), the Redneck (to be the discriminatory moron) and the Man with the Tie. The gimmick of season 6 was supposed to have a new personlity with every episode (Stéphane Burne, the Old Man and the Caveman).
• Split Personality: Mathieu has half a dozen of different personnalities.
• The Stoner: The Hippie persona.
• The Talk: After reviewing a 70s PSA about masturbation, Mathieu decides that a PSA on such a topic must be adapted to the 21th century... Done by The Boss.
  *shot of the Geek masturbating in his bed, then cut to the Boss entering the room*
  Boss: Well that's it, you're a man ! Now get up, go buy yourself a bottle of Malibu and find yourself a frisky girl ! Grab some weed on the way and use a condom; sluts are fun for beginners, but you don't want to get the clap ! Alright, see ya, dude !
• Talking to Themself: Any time (except in the first few episodes), as the other characters aren't just other characters all played by the same person, but split personalities of Mathieu.
• 10-Minute Retirement: In one episode, the boss refrains from making sexual remarks because he heard someone say that white men have tiny dicks. Mathieu even feels concerned by this and tries to encourage him as much as he can.
  Mathieu: How many little girls have they thrown in this pool to make them wet?! *turns towards the Boss with a ding sound*
  The Boss: No.
  Mathieu: Too bad...
• Tranquil Fury: About the girls in a video who are throwing bags of trash at garbagemen from several floors of height instead of taking them out like normal people, and giggling about it before uploading it online themselves. Matthieu is ice cold in his treatment of them, which is acknowledged by the other personalities.
• Wham Episode: Episode 99, the final episode of season 5. The masked man's identity and motives are revealed, and he kills Mathieu and Dr. Frederick, though not before ending on a very vague cliffhanger.
• We Can Rebuild Him: Parodied when the Prof explains how a man's penis can be insured for a million dollars. A spoof of the opening for The Six Million Dollar Man shows how Mathieu's penis became "The One Million Dollar Dick".
• Whole-Plot Reference: During the episode about the (now closed) Youtube channel of the Creepy Crossdresser Tonetta, Matthieu and the boss made several increasingly explicit references about the man being a serial-killer. Cue a recreation of the infamous "Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard. I'd fuck me so hard" sequence (from The Silence of the Lambs), with The Boss, The Geek, and The Hippie being respectively Buffalo Bill, his captive, and the dog.