In the early days of the internet, even before the “¡Y lo sabes!” memes, small viral videos began to emerge that still survive in collective memory: the animation of “Badger, badger, badger,” Edgar falls, “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard”… a rather clean humor that was completely shattered when in 2002, we all decided to laugh at one of the first major internet memes: the Star Wars Kid.
Not so long ago…
Overnight, a kid imitating Darth Maul from ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace’ in his garage with a golf club appeared on everyone’s computers, whether downloaded in Realmedia, found on a magazine CD compiling “the best of the internet,” or through eMule. Nobody knew who that kid was; it was cruel but innocent humor, right?
Well, Ghyslain Raza doesn’t think so. At the age of fifteen, this student from Trois-Rivières, Quebec, saw his life turn into a nightmare overnight. In fact, the garage was the video studio of his high school, where he recorded the tape over a basketball game and then accidentally left it forgotten in a basement. A classmate found it, another digitized it, and a third one uploaded it to the internet under the name “Idiot_starwars_funny.wmv.”
The video became a huge success; several famous bloggers, like Andy Baio, uploaded it to YouTube, and it began to be shared massively through P2P networks. Suddenly, everyone knew the “Star Wars Kid.” However, the comments he received were far from encouraging. In fact, there were people inciting him to commit suicide, and he had nowhere to hide at his school to avoid bullying. He lost his friends, left the school, and a year later, he sued four of his classmates for around $200,000.
In the end, an out-of-court settlement was reached in 2006, when Raza was already studying law, and he continued with his life. In 2013, he used the video to raise awareness about the dangers of bullying. Having made peace with his past, a decade later, he even starred in a documentary called ‘Star Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows’ to draw attention to the dangers of the internet. Unfortunately, the documentary is not available on any streaming service in Spain.
The video ended up being referenced in ‘Arrested Development,’ and there were attempts to have Raza make a cameo in ‘Episode III.’ Gradually, the initial incomprehensible hatred gave way to affection, the kind that only fans can have towards situations like this. Because deep down, we have all wielded a mop as a lightsaber, imitated Leia with pastries, or put our hand to our mouth to mimic Darth Vader‘s voice. We simply had better luck than the Star Wars Kid.
I would like to say that in 2023, we are more careful with the people we mock on the internet, but experience tells us the opposite. Perhaps in 2033, we will know how to behave online, if the internet doesn’t control us completely by then!
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