The Star Wars Kid was just
goofing off at school. Now he finds his private performance downloaded by over
15 million Internet users across the world.
The Star Wars Kid is a 15-year-old from
Quebec known only as Ghyslain -- his parents are keeping his last name secret to
protect his identity. Back in November 2002, Ghyslain was goofing off at a
school video studio and recorded himself fighting a mock battle with a golf ball
retriever lightsaber. Over two minutes, the video shows the lone, overweight
teenager twirling his mock lightsaber ever faster while making his own
accompanying sound effects.
Yes, we've all had our dorky, private
moments, but this poor kid is living the nightmare of having his private
dorkiness projected across the world to giggling Web users. His friends found
the tape, and uploaded it to KaZaA as a joke on April 19. Within two weeks,
someone had added full Star Wars special effects and noises to the tape,
and the video was linked on gaming, technology, and Star Wars-related
sites across the Internet.
Every teenager does something they live to regret. It's part
and parcel of adolescence. A 15-year-old Quebec boy named Ghyslain simply made
the additional mistake of recording his moment of infamy on video. And now he's
an Internet sensation.
Ghyslain, whose parents requested that his last name be
withheld, is the so-called “Star Wars Kid” featured in a hilarious but oddly
poignant video that has been downloaded more than a million times since its
release to the Web in late April. In the clip, Ghyslain brandishes a golf ball
retriever that serves as a double-bladed light saber, enthusiastically
re-enacting a series of battle maneuvers inspired by the feats of evildoer Darth
Maul in “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” When a group of
schoolmates discovered the videotape, they put it on the Internet, and within
days it was a cause celebré.
The Ghyslain clip soon caught the attention of Web bloggers
Andy Baio and Jish Mukerji, who posted it to their respective sites. Its obvious
comedic appeal aside, Baio recognized in Ghyslain a kindred spirit. “I'm a
computer programmer, and I was unpopular in high school, except for some
like-minded, geeky friends,” Baio said. “Yes, he looks silly and awkward.
But at the second level, you just identify so much.”
Visitors to Baio's site, www.waxy.org, began posting comments
on the video — not all of them civil.
“Some of the comments were really positive. People were
writing things like, ‘I was like him in high school,’” Baio said. “But a
lot of them — a disturbing number — were incredibly mean-spirited. It made
me mad. All of these people calling him ‘fat-ass’ or ‘loser,’ and it's
completely hypocritical — I mean, all the traffic was coming from technology
sites, videogame sites, and ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ sites.
“So I turned off the comment function, deleted the negative
comments and posted a message to the effect that ‘You're trashing one of your
own, and all you geeks and nerds and dorks need to evaluate how you're
behaving.’”
When one of Ghyslain's schoolmates guilty of posting the video
contacted Baio and mailed him the teen's contact information, Baio and Mukerji
called Quebec. “[Ghyslain's] initial and understandable reaction was that he
was unsure of my intentions,” Mukerji said. “But he opened up quickly. He's
an intelligent young man. He was very guarded, but by the end of the
conversation, he was very jovial.”
Baio and Mukerji didn't stop there. They established a Web
fundraiser with the stated aim of collecting enough money to buy Ghyslain an
iPod, and the response has far exceeded their expectations — as of May 19,
they had amassed more than $1000, and thanks to an anonymous $500 donation, Baio
expected the tally to top $2000 by the end of the day. The plan is to now buy
Ghyslain his own iBook.
“The video was going to spread around the Web anyway —
hopefully this will help, and if nothing else, he has an iBook to keep him
company,” Baio said. “And he also learned that geeks look out for each
other.”
We Just Broke the 30 Millionth Video Download on February 1st.
Ghyslain is Now the Most Download Man on the Web!
Take a Bow Ghyslain, You are Now King of the Internet.
Paris Hilton is the Most Downloaded Woman.
So Paris is now your Queen my Friend!
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