Free Republic

It's been a while since we heard anything about Ghyslain Raza, better known to the Internet at large as "Star Wars Kid", star of what is heralded as "the most popular viral video of all-time." After three friends uploaded the infamous clip, which features Raza flailing about with a metal pole doing his most awkward Darth Maul impersonation, the Canadian teen became depressed, dropped out of school and wound up in a children's psychiatric hospital. The video isn't quite as hilarious when you know that.

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...

It was a moment of unadulterated goofiness, the kind of thing anyone might do with no one watching: A teen from Quebec videotaped himself as he pretended to wield a light saber "Star Wars" style.

'Star Wars Kid' Becomes Internet Star Thursday August 21, 2003 6:59 PM By MARTHA IRVINE AP National Writer It was a moment of unadulterated goofiness, the kind of thing anyone might do with no one watching: A teen from Quebec videotaped himself as he pretended to wield a light saber ``Star Wars'' style. But that private moment went public, very public, when classmates at his high school found the tape in a cabinet and uploaded it onto an Internet file-sharing site this past spring. Now Ghyslian Raza is known far and wide as the ``Star Wars Kid,'' with a fan...

Parents file lawsuit over Star Wars video Humiliation forced Quebec teenager to drop out of school, document says By TU THANH HA From Wednesday's Globe and Mail MONTREAL — The parents of Ghyslain Raza, the Quebec teenager who became a celebrity this spring after classmates posted on the Internet a video of him mimicking a Star Wars character, allege that their son was so humiliated by the experience that he had to get psychiatric care. The revelation is made in a lawsuit his parents have filed against the families of four classmates they accuse of maliciously turning their son into...