I’m going to take you back to 2002, when social media started to take off, slowly, and without much fanfare.

It looked nothing like it does now.

I was 14 (don’t do the math) and MySpace wasn’t even a thing then.

That site only went live in 2003 and was the biggest addition to the world of online sharing and socialising since Friendster, which I don’t remember.

I’m told it was a big deal overseas, but it didn’t seem to catch on much in South Africa (I could be wrong).

So, back to 2002, when Ghyslain Raza, a kid directing a Star Wars parody at his high school, decided to try out some lightsaber choreography using the only video equipment available to him at the AV club studio.

He set up a camera, filmed his moves, popped the video on a shelf, and forgot about it.

In April of 2003, a few of his classmates stumbled upon it and uploaded it to a file-sharing network called Kazaa, where, per Mashable, it was viewed an estimated 900 million times likely making it the most-watched video in the world, pre-YouTube.

It was later uploaded to YouTube when YouTube came into being:

Raza quickly earned the nickname ‘Star Wars Kid’ as he was pushed into the spotlight without his consent.

Even as Raza refused all interviews and clung to his privacy, court jesters such as Stephen Colbert and Seth MacFarlane thought nothing of piling on. An air of cultural legitimacy was lent to a case of cyberbullying.

The anonymity of the screen, and the absence of any details about Raza and the personal nightmare he was going through, brought out the hecklers.

When the video was shared by Andy Baio (who would later become CTO of Kickstarter) alongside parodies of it, the comments started rolling in.

I dub thee Darth Haul.

If there were more portly Jedis like that, I’d totally leave the dark side.

The little known Jedi, Luke Piestalker.

What do you mean, you’re out of Baja Womprat Gorditas? Motherfucking Tatooine Taco Bell, I’m taking your ass out!

Baio decided to disable new comments and delete the worst remaining ones with a message:

“Yes, he’s fat and awkward,” Baio wrote. “We get it. Since 90% of the traffic to these videos is coming from gaming, technology, and Star Wars news websites, I’m guessing that most of you weren’t any cooler in junior high school than this poor kid. All you geeks, nerds, and dorks out there need to think twice before trashing one of your own.”

Some problems there, too, but at least he tried.

Raza would speak about the experience in a rare interview 10 years later:

“I know that the people who sent me gifts had good intentions,” Raza said in 2013, in his one and only major media interview on the topic, to the Canadian magazine Macleans.

“But they were only drops in the ocean of contempt that I faced.”

In school, Raza stopped attending classes as his fellow students mocked him with reenactions of his choreography.

“A billion people drew conclusions about me from that video.

It’s not something that you want to be associated with. Definitely not when you’re 15 and trying to build your identity. 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.

I never tried to commit suicide, but it was a very dark period for me.”

With the help of teachers, friends, and family, he managed to make it through school, went on to law school in Montreal, and eventually became president of a society that aimed to preserve Trois-Rivières’ heritage.

The release of a photo of him as the society’s new president instigated a new round of internet attention.

“Well, I’m done feeling bad for him,” wrote one U.S. blogger and yoga instructor. His baffling argument was that Raza had “tricked” the world, because he seemed to be doing fine now.

Okay… a bit of a disconnect there.

Trolls, it seems, were hiding in the shadows, waiting to spring even before Facebook came along to change the way that we interact online, forever.

Raza, in many ways, was the Rebecca Black of his time.

[source:mashable]