In what may very well be the first internet humiliation video of our time, the “Star Wars Kid” video has gained an estimated one billion views since it was posted online on April 14th 2003, a time long before the ubiquity of sharing videos on YouTube had even began.
The video, which features a young Ghyslain Raza practicing light saber moves in his school’s TV club studio was found and then uploaded to the internet, becoming vastly popular among numerous P2P sharing networks resulting in constant abuse on and offline for the young Raza. The now twenty-five year old has spoken out for the first time in ten years regarding the incident and the severe consequences that followed nearly destroying his high school days.
No matter how hard I tried to ignore people telling me to commit suicide, I couldn’t help but feel worthless, like my life wasn’t worth living.
Raza, who is now a successful graduate of McGill Law hopes that talking in depth about his traumatic experience with cyber-bullying will assist in aiding the welfare of victims and strongly advises them to seek help if needed.
