14 years back, in a cosmic system that truly isn’t too far away, there was no Facebook and no Twitter. Myspace was in its initial stages. Yet, there was cyber-bullying.
If you recollect 2003, you most likely will be able to recall a viral video of an adolescent kid energetically rehearsing some Darth Maul-style moves, utilizing a home-improvised style of the baddie’s renowned double-sided lightsaber (which was actually a golf ball retriever).
Named “Star Wars Kid”, 15-year-old Quebec school-boy Ghyslain Raza went ahead to gain universal fame, after the footage (which he had never proposed to release online) was shared over the world. It’s hard to tally how often it’s been seen, yet a few assessments (by means of NBC) put the figure at over a billion.
At first look, there was nothing especially evil about the video’s online fame. Raza’s fixation and clear delight in what he’s doing, combined with the way that he makes a fairly improbable looking Sith Lord, are both charming and funny.
In any case, sudden online fame had a dark side. This was particularly after Raza’s name was uncovered on a Quebec TV program. As it is, in a 2013 interview, Raza, now a grown-up, revealed that the video had prompted barbarous harassing from internet users and his companions at school.
He told writer Jonathan Trudel the following;
“What I saw was mean. It was violent. People were telling me to commit suicide. 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 uncovered how his classmates would “climb on to table-tops” to mock him.
The footage was shot on VHS in 2002 when he was 14 (this was the pre camera-telephone time), was transported into a digital format and released online in 2003, without Raza’s consent, after it was found by some of his classmates.
Soon thereafter in an email interview with the Canadian National Post Raza, who left school as a result of the harassing and decided to study with a private coach, stated:
“I want my life back.”
His parents propelled a $160,000 lawsuit. Although some sites guarantee the amount was higher against the parents of the kids who released the video. They asserted that their child had endured extreme distress and required continuous psychiatric assistance. They later came to an out of court settlement, yet the last figure didn’t take care of the family’s costs.
There was some help, as indicated by Business Insider, after the video initially became famous online. As it is, a group of well-wishers teamed up to send Raza an iPod and a donation, while an appeal to secure him a role in the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith appears to have been well intentioned.
Be that as it may, invitations to show up on different chat shows just exacerbated the embarrassment.
Raza recalled in an interview in 2013;
“Every single talk show in North America wanted me as a guest. I still have Jay Leno’s invitation. A Japanese show offered me a lot of money. But why were they inviting me? They wanted to turn me into a circus act.”
Today, if you tap on the video, which is still on YouTube, after first being transferred to the site in 2006, and read the remarks underneath, there’s a blend of reverence, beguilement and plain bullying.
Some commentators upbraid the bullies by guaranteeing to know the destiny of the kid in the video:
“I heard he changed school because he got bullied and then committed suicide after they got to know.”
Fortunately, the story has a more joyful ending. While Raza briefly dropped out of school, he figured out how to finish his senior school year, and later went ahead to graduate from Law School.
His choice to stand up in 2013, when he was 25, was persuaded by a yearning to bring issues to light and battle cyber-bullying. After all, this is something that has turned out to be substantially more predominant since “Star Wars Kid” first became a web sensation.
He stated;
“You’ll survive. You’ll get through it… you’re not alone. You are surrounded by people who love you.”
With everything taken into account, it merits recalling that 4th May isn’t simply Star Wars day: since 2012, it’s additionally been the United Nation’s official Anti-Bullying day. Ghyslain Raza, may the force be with you.
