Finally, after all of these years, one of the internet's biggest viral video stars has broken his silence. As it turns out, while many people embrace their internet fame, the Star Wars Kid spent the past ten years resenting his.
Back when Ghyslain Raza was a 14-year-old high school student in 2002, he shot a video that was originally intended to be private. No, it wasn't a sex tape. That probably would've been less embarrassing. Raza was recording himself practicing his sweet Star Wars Jedi knight moves in order to prepare for a parody his school's TV club was working on (below).
Fast forward to a year later when one of Raza's classmates posted the video online without his permission and the rest is history. The video went viral (which was impressive before YouTube was around) and to this day, has been seen by close to a billion people. While the world was laughing at him, Raza didn't think it was so funny.
According to Raza in an interview with L'actualité, he became the victim of some serious cyber-bullying. "What I saw was mean. It was violent. People were telling me to commit suicide. It was a very dark period. 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."
He goes on to explain that students would climb on tabletops in the common room at school to insult him and the entire experience has made him to finally decide to come forward now to help others deal with cyberbullying.
He recently graduated from law school and has learned a lot about the many public cyberbullying cases that make the news these days. He wants to let these kids know that "You'll survive. You'll get through it. And you're not alone. You are surrounded by people who love you."
Via L'actualité and Maclean's.
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