Posted on 09/01/2006 11:27:04 PM PDT by doug from upland
'Star Wars Kid' cuts a deal with his tormentors TU THANH HA
From Friday's Globe and Mail
TROIS-RIVIÈRES, QUE. — As Ghyslain Raza recalled, whenever he walked by his high school's common areas, other students would jump on tables and chant, "Star Wars Kid! Star Wars Kid!"
There would be a commotion as they shouted and poked at him, trying to get a reaction. "It was simply unbearable," he said.
An otherwise ordinary teen in this Quebec small town, Mr. Raza had become a worldwide object of ridicule when schoolmates put on the Internet a video of him clumsily pretending to be a Star Wars character.
Three years later, Mr. Raza and his parents this week reached an out-of-court settlement with the families of three former schoolmates they had sued for $351,000 in damages.
Related to this article Latest Comments Comments are closed for this story The settlement annuls a civil trial set to begin on Monday that would have scrutinized one of the world's first and most-publicized cases of cyber-bullying.
However, documents filed in the case at the Trois-Rivières courthouse give new details about how a mean-spirited high-school prank turned into a global Internet cause célèbre.
Specifics of the settlement remain confidential.
Lawyers for the three schoolmates had suffered a setback after they were not allowed to introduce as evidence a transcript of a phone conversation Mr. Raza had with a blogger, Jishnu Mukerji.
The blogger had posted a transcript of the exchange on the Internet.
Conducted a month after the video and parodies of it began circulating, the conversation has Mr. Raza calling the spoofs "interesting" but not expressing much distress.
However, a judge rejected a bid to table a transcript of the chat and Mr. Mukerji was not available to testify.
The documents include transcripts of examinations under oath of Mr. Raza and of three students accused of circulating the video, Michaël Caron, Jérôme Laflamme and Jean-Michel Rheault.
(Proceedings against a fourth, François Labarre, were dropped after Mr. Raza acknowledged that the allegations against that student were based on hearsay.)
In the transcripts, Mr. Raza said the experience left him unable to attend school.
"It was simply unbearable, totally. It was impossible to attend class," Mr. Raza said.
He said the situation left him feeling drained of energy, and that he let himself go and no longer lifted weights to keep fit.
He said he was diagnosed with depression by a pedopsychiatrist at Montreal's Sainte-Justine Hospital and his lawyers, in their fillings, said they wanted to have a psychiatrist and a psychologist testify, along with producing his medical file.
Under questioning, Mr. Laflamme and Mr. Rheault conceded their role in spreading a video that Mr. Raza, then 15, had made of himself and left on a shelf in the school TV studio.
Mr. Laflamme said he discovered the tape in April of 2003, when he took school equipment to film a varsity football game.
He showed the tape to Mr. Rheault, who made a copy of it.
"I thought it'd be an interesting prank . . . I wanted Ghyslain to know what I knew of him, what I had seen," Mr. Laflamme said.
"All I did was take the cassette, digitize it on the studio computer to pull a joke on Ghyslain. After that, I had nothing to do with it," Mr. Rheault said he later told the school principal after the controversy erupted.
He said that when a school counsellor confronted him about Mr. Raza's misfortunes, he replied, "It's no fun what happened here, but that's the problem with the Internet. Things travel fast."
Mr. Caron, who says he didn't even know the two other pranksters, said in examination that as the tape was being e-mailed among students, he created a website and posted the video on it.
According to court filings, the video first appeared on the Internet on the evening of April 14, 2003.
About a month later, one U.S. Web blog that had posted the video said it had been downloaded 1.1 million times already.
Mr. Raza's lawyer said in a court filing that the video was so widely circulated that one Internet site solely dedicated to the two-minute clip recorded 76 million visits by October, 2004.
Mr. Raza conceded in his examination that he didn't express much anguish when he spoke to Mr. Mukerji in May of 2003 about his sudden fame.
He said he was cautious because "everything I said was textually reported on the Internet. I signalled in more or less subtle fashion my unhappiness."
Mr. Raza -- who appears on the video as a chubby, ungainly young man -- recalled how other students got on tables and chanted taunts at him. "There was about 100 people in those halls. It was total chaos . . . Any opportunity was good enough to shout 'Star Wars!' "
He said in one class, where a document was shown through a projector, other students scrolled the text, mimicking the opening of the movie, as they sang the Star Wars theme.
And whenever he was in a public place, he said, strangers would call to him.
"Hey! It's Ghyslain Raza! Star Wars Kid, hey!"
He left the school and eventually, got a private tutor.
No one would comment yesterday about the settlement, including whether it included monetary compensation.
However, previous proceedings in the case had included discussions about whether the families of the three defendants had liability insurance.
The families of the three defendants have varying financial situations, court documents suggest. Mr. Caron's court filings include a letter from an insurer refusing to provide liability insurance coverage, whereas Mr. Laflamme says in his examination that his father had savings of $500,000 from an inheritance.
These kids got the idea from South Park, when Stan and Kyle videotaped Cartman having a tea party with ClydeFrog and Polly Prissypants and then sent it in to America's Funniest Videos to win the $10,000.
What a humorless dork.
Thats close to Rush money!!!!!!Now wonder he laugh's a lot!!!!!
Except that numa numa guy posted the video himself. He's another one who could've been rich from his fame, if he hadn't been so busy being embarrassed. I admire William Hung for turning a moment of bad singing into a mini-franchise, for a while at least.
I could see numa numa guy on tour with the guys who did the original song, selling humorous lip-syniching how-to guides, etc.
(sigh) Back when I was making a fool of myself, there was no internet.
Why don't they just give him a small role in one of the movies?
An excellent idea.
Years ago, my (now) 10-year-old son picked up HIS first light sabre and did his own version of Return of the Jedi.
Seeing that he was pretty dang good at it, we signed him up for fencing lessons.
And you know what? He IS pretty danged good at it! (Though he surprised us all by passing on the sabre and taking up the foil instead.)
That being said...add my name to the list of those who HATE bullies.
Regards,
PS: Last year the kids' (Catholic) school did an anti-bullying poster contest. I suggested the following to my son: "DON'T BE A BULLY OR I'LL HAVE TO KICK YOUR A$$." Which caused him to stop in his tracks and crack up with nervous laughter. I don't think he'd ever heard me say a bad word before. LOL...I can still see his face...
(And NO...we didn't hand that one in.)
I think this is the best one
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=starwarskidmatrix.wmv
VK, that would have been a great poster, an so true in many instances. I was a classic bully victim until one kid was taunting me, daring me to hit him. I guess 3 years of non-stop abuse at their hands was my limit. I used a move I saw on Star Trek - flat of the palm against his nose.
Funny. He never bothered me again.
I hate seeing kids get picked on but if that kid had taken just one of the "teasers" and beat the snot out of him, the teasing would have stopped.
Although.. I guess he did have the last laugh.
MM
Hey, I KNOW it would have been a good poster, but I don't think Sister Aquinata would have liked it. LOL It had the virtue of being totally true, too.
Captain Kirk had a ton of good (dirty) moves. I personally liked the head butt into the gut against the wall, followed by a swift snapping up of the head into the doubled-over guy's chin. Worked every time.
Regards,
Of course, the offenders could have future earnings attached for payment of any settlements.
You're left alone after that move.
> That being said...add my name to the list of those who HATE bullies.
I believe it is essential to the survival of Western Civilization for everybody who *hates* bullies to stand up to them and say so.
What is Militant Islam if not bullying on an elaborate, grand scale?
Bullies get away with it because decent folk don't or won't stand up to them and sock them in the kisser. Do that often enough and they stop. Fail to do so and the bully prevails.
Standing up to the bully is a Defining Moment in every man's life. Anyone who has had to do it would agree: it is a life-changing experience.
I *hate* what has happened to this kid. I just *hate* it. I've sent my e-mail and made my displeasure known. Who'll join me?
*DieHard*
Artist: Eagles Lyrics
Song: Get Over It Lyrics
I turn on the tube and what do I see
A whole lotta people cryin’ ’don’t blame me’
They point their crooked little fingers ar everybody else
Spend all their time feelin’ sorry for themselves
Victim of this, victim of that
Your momma’s too thin; your daddy’s too fat
Get over it
Get over it
All this whinin’ and cryin’ and pitchin’ a fit
Get over it, get over it
You say you haven’t been the same since you had your little crash
But you might feel better if I gave you some cash
The more I think about it, old billy was right
Let’s kill all the lawyers, kill ’em tonight
You don’t want to work, you want to live like a king
But the big, bad world doesn’t owe you a thing
Get over it
Get over it
If you don’t want to play, then you might as well split
Get over it, get over it
It’s like going to confession every time I hear you speak
You’re makin’ the most of your losin’ streak
Some call it sick, but I call it weak
You drag it around like a ball and chain
You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain
You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown
Got your mind in the gutter, bringin’ everybody down
Complain about the present and blame it on the past
I’d like to find your inner child and kick it’s little ass
Get over it
Get over it
All this bitchin’ and moanin’ and pitchin’ a fit
Get over it, get over it
Get over it
Get over it
It’s gotta stop sometime, so why don’t you quit
Get over it, get over it
> I believe that all children who are potential targets for bullies ( and parents know if their child is one, if they have half a clue) should be in martial arts programs.
I believe every child everywhere should study Aikido as a part of the school's core curriculum.
As a martial art, it is perfectly useless for attacking people: it's more like a dance than anything else.
But for personal self defence! It's poetry in motion: the attacker does not stand a chance and will end up on his arse every time.
*DieHard*
Huh? You did *something wrong*, J. I and others have made it hundreds of times, and never had 'results' like that, Yuk.
What kind of squash did you use? Did you discard the shell and just use the meat? Maybe the squash was bad? Did you use chicken broth or half & half?
Got me stumped. Wish you were nearby (Penna) so I could send you a 2lb container and you could taste it for yourself, or watch you make it and figure out what the heck happened...
Got me stumped.
I disagree, I asked them for more. Sad, that some people feel that they should be paid if their feelings get hurt.
"I dunno, ~US$400,000 isn't so bad."
How much goes to attorney's fees, etc?
Pingster.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.