| Before I begin, you all must know the Moral of this story is: If you're ever going to do something embarrassingly stupid, DO NOT film yourself doing it! |
| The Star Wars Kid! |
| It seems, back in April 19th 2003, a videotape that was never meant to be seen by anyone but it's creator, was uploaded to the internet. If you downloaded this file, you would see an overweight 15-year-old teenager holding a golfball retriever pretending it was actually a double-bladed lightsaber like the saber used by Darth Maul in the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Totally without self-consciousness, and with real intensity and drive, the teen dances about a small studio in the Audio/visual lab at his Quebec high school. Spinning and whirling both himself and the golfball rod around, occasionally making the cool ass "Vrrrooom! Zaapp!" sounds. |
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| Contents copywrite 2003, Michael Avila, Patrick Sauriol, Ghyslain & Pseudopod productions |
| Now, don't lie to yourself and say you've NEVER done that. I did. You did. We all did something like that, and/or continue to do so every day. We've just been lucky enough to not leave any evidence behind. This teen mistake was in leaving the tape behind at the classroom. (from the small clip at the end of the tape, it looks like he used an old basketball vedio tape of a high school game. Most school sports teams film the plays to anaylize later. Perhaps a student was looking for a blank tape and stumbled upon greatness...) And all it took was some kids to find the tape and upload it to try to humiliate him. By doing a little research: The Star Wars kid, whose first name is Gyhslain (French/Canadian) made the tape November 4th, 2002. Now, he is infamous, as the small video has been downloaded at least two million times! And this story was also reported in Wired, the New York Times, and the National Post. |
| Now the Cool part! People love him! I, myself, totally admire him! I'm not laughing at him, I'm laughing at myself because I have been him. So have you. In fact, Programmers from Raven Software, lead ny Bryan Dube took the video and added brilliant effects, including the title crawl, and lightsaber and sound effects. And THAT version got downloaded another two millions times. A collection of donations was organized of people who support his passion for being a kid at heart. To date, the total amount collected? $4,334.44 ........... whos laughing now? I'll have to revise the moral... |
| When reached for comment, The "Star Wars Kid" just wishes all the attention he's recieved had never happened and the electronic genie was never let out of the bottle. Nevertheless, Ghyslain's video has touched a nerve amongst fans who remember a time when they wern't the most popular kid in school, and when the imagination and courage to pretend to be a Jedi Knight wasn't something to be embarassed about. On behalf of those who ever swithed on a flashligh with a plastic tube taped to the end of it, we say to Ghyslain: |
| May the Force be with you... |
| ...He is...the Rebellians last hope... |