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Star Wars Kid Cuts a Deal With His Tormentors
An anonymous reader writes "Ghyslain Raza, who gained instant online fame as the 'Star Wars Kid' settled this week with the families of the three classmates who posted his two minute Lucasfilm screen test on the Internet. No details were released but the suit sought damages of $351,000. A victory for the victims of cyber-bullying, or missed chance by thin-skinned Ghyslain to cash-in as the next William 'She Bangs' Hung?"
It may not be always obvious what the right thing is to do when you're in a situation like Ghyslain's. How was he to know that the reaction to how he and his parents handled his situation would be overall frowned upon. He had a chance to make something that was embarrasing work out really well for him. But nobody likes a whiner. I only hope that other kids can learn from his situation and make the most of their own problems.
But first get a settlement.
Insert witty sig here.
It's certainly possible to turn the lemons of Internet infamy into lemonade, but it takes a certain psychological makeup to ride that tiger. I'm pretty sure Ghyslain did what was right for him.
I'd like to sit down and talk with the guy, though...
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
That was so long ago. That kid must be like 30 by now.
...if only he'd found an agent or studio wanting him. It's much much easier to become famous if millions are already familiar with you...
Furthermore, I doubt that it will prevent so-called cyberbullying; it will just remind the more intelligent bullies to wreak their mischief anonymously.
When I think of all the bullies I had to deal with growing up, back in the pre-Web days, and the revenge I could have gotten by spoofing them on a website, well, I guess I'm glad I didn't have that opportunity to do something so easy that would haunt me the rest of my life. It would have been fun, though.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
That is the main difrence the kid had this put on him not buy his own choice
I still think got lemons bla bla you know
Did this kid?
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
He had been known for his Slash-dotting...they'd cheer "Slashdot Kid Slashdot Kid Slashdot Kid" and every hot chick in school would be all over him like the geek that he is!
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Is the $350,000 for no one paying him to use the video? Or is it for the humiliation?
"How was he to know that the reaction to how he and his parents handled his situation would be overall frowned upon."
Is there some instance where you think people will be sympathetic to someone filing a ridiculous, frivoulous lawsuit for... *GASP*... embarassment?
This kid wasted the court's time, wasted resources, and made an even bigger ass of himself as a result.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
When you hear what his life was like after the fact. I doubt some of the more mal-adjusted /.ers would have a different reaction to being harassed 24/7 for something you didn't really want anyone to see. Let's not forget he's a kid; a nerdy, overweight kid (Much like many of us were). It's hard to live with that kind of notoriety so soon in life.
For the record:
He had to drop out of school due to harassment.
He still gets approached by people on the streets about it.
His parents had to hire a private tutor for him.
He ended up on anti-depression medication.
It's not funny, don't laugh.
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Lazy /.ers are the worst
http://www.google.com/search?q=star+wars+kid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars_kid
But don't go to hxtp://wvw.starwarskid.com/
It's a college diploma mill (very sketchy)
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The guys who stole (er, "misappropriated" this video and stuck it on the net for the sole purpose of humiliating this poor kid deserve to be punished, IMO, and here in the civilized world the way that people are punished for stuff like this is money; it's not a perfect system, but it's the best we've come up with so far.
They're just lucky they're not in the US -- the MPAA would have come down on them like the wrath of God for messing with this kid's copyright on his original work.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
had made of himself and left on a shelf in the school TV studio
case solved. plantiff guilty or embarrassing himself. we should not reward stupidity or accomdate it. the more accomodation, the more it appears. now this child/moron has learnd when things go against you, sue
"It's no fun what happened here, but that's the problem with the Internet. Things travel fast."
i believe thats a feature, not a problem. if it was as slow as the postal mail no one would use it for what it was designed...to quickly transmit data
at the risk of sounding un-sensitive, life sucks then you die. deal with it like everyone else or fast forward to the end
i don't care
Without knowing terms of the settlement, the fact that he got something (hopefully) makes me feel good. Bullying is not a harmless little fun like the mod seems to think, judging from his comment ("suck it up kid"). It affects people years down the road, causes relationship problems that take years of therapy to fix. I myself was never bullied, but I have close friends who did, and it's a serious issue, not something to be mocked.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Having been a rather akward teenager myself, I can understand why he decided to file suit against them. I don't know anything about this kid or how he feels about himself or even what he went through on an every day basis before this occured but I remember being in high school and feeling invisible to the rest of the world. Suddenly, one day to have myself posted all over the internet and being the subject of laughter, at the age of 15, would have been psychologically devestating to me. It is easy, for those of us who are adults, to be critical of his choices but we weren't the ones treated this way. We never walked in his shoes and never suffered the embarassment that he suffered.
On the outside, since we have no emotional attachment to the situation, it's easy for us to say "I'd ride that money train all the way to the bank" but that fails to give the situation its true weight. Being 15 is tough enough for most kids without having themeselves publically humilitated by their peers just for a few laughs. I'm not a huge fan of law suits in general, but in this instance I am. The action of these kids was not criminal but it was a terrible thing to do and there needs to be consequences.
He never really had a chance. Note to parents: Start with Bill or George or Steve when naming a son.
[Comment deleted to prevent offending /.'ers]
... I would DEEPLY enjoy seeing bullies getting sued for their actions and seeing it stick. The problem lies in the fact that we're already an overly litigeous society and this would only make it far worse. I would like to see true bullies face some serious, life-changing, consequences for their actions, but I'd hate to see some skinny punk-ass kid think he (or his enterprising parents) could go around suing people for causing emotional distress.
I'd also like to lay a [un]healthy amount of blame on this kid's parents. First of all, if he weren't fat, I'd say that this might NEVER have happened. And even if not being obese could have prevented some of it, it's unquestionable that his obesity exacerbated the situation greatly. And whose fault is a child's obesity? Without a medical excuse, it's the parents. And only recently has the media started to actually pay some attention to the problem. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0496200/) The damage done to a child who is obese is not just physical, but mental and emotional and the scars last for life. The damage resulting from childhood obesity alone could have been the root cause that made him so vulnerable to being bullied in the first place.
Nothing on the planet will stop all kids from potentially being bullied and/or being bullies themselves. It's actually part of the natural human condition. But adding to it through parental neglect is more than just a shame, it's child abuse and should be addressed criminally just as other forms of abusive/criminal neglect are.
There's not a single law possible to force someone to actually care about the feelings of other people.
Lazy /.ers are the worst
Nah, lazy hookers are the worst.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
This kid's life had to have been hell since. Odds are it wasn't exactly gravy before either. Why does any child deserve this kind of public humiliation? We should be genuinely proud of him for not taking another approach that some horribly bullied kids take of late: a shooting rampage and suicide. And you wonder why that type of thing happens. It isn't an accident, folks. They weren't fucked in the head to start with. If you torment a child to the extreme, there's no telling what direction they will go - they are too young for this stuff. I have two young boys and I worry about what they'll encounter as they go through school. There was nothing funny about this public humiliation. Nothing at all. Everyone reading this thread should be required to rent the film Welcome To The Dollhouse.
--- What?
Reminds me of a situation at my old middle school. Our teacher reached up to pull down the overhead projector screen and accidentally pulled down the whole unit form the ceiling. She started laughing, so we joined in. All of a sudden, she turns, glares, and yells "Why are you lauughing at me?" One brave soul said, "Ma'am, we're not laught at you. We're laughing with you." to which she replied, "Do you see me laughing?"
I sometimes wonder if she really was laughing or if we just filled it in to justify ourselves. I could also see her initially laughing to counter shock, then realizing that she could have gotten hurt, sobering up, and changing her memories of what she did or didn't do.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
When you feel alienated from school and everyone laughs at you, you DON'T CHOOSE to drop out. You HAVE TO.
It seems to me that you really don't understand what free will is. Psychological pressure is a determinating factor, EVEN in murder trials. Can you say "temporal insanity"?
Of course, you haven't been ridiculized in public or bullied so what the heck do you know.
What the hell? Why are so many of the comments saying things like this? He somehow deserves what happened to him because he wasn't smart enough, wasn't confident enough, didn't take advantage, whatever. Has everyone on this website forgotten what it's like to be a socially inept, outcast 15-year-old? Sure, by and large we've grown out of it, but a lot of us would not have appreciated having something we consider completely humiliating broadcast to the entire world.
You "can't blame someone else because of your personal problems," but what if the problems in question (humiliation in front of a worldwide audience, constant attention from the media and from strangers, drastically increased bullying in school when he was already not the most popular kid around) are in fact a direct result of someone else's actions? Can't you blame them for those actions, especially when they were done maliciously?
Everyone seems to be talking about fame as though it's this wonderful gift. Here's a clue: Not everyone wants it. And not everyone should be forced to want it, just because it's your opinion that he should have seized the opportunity and made a few bucks. Maybe he prefers the lack of fame over any potential profit he could have gotten from it. I know I would hate to be famous. That's not a sour grapes thing, I do have an ego and I would like to be well-respected within my own field, but real fame? Have you seen what the world does to celebrities? It's disgusting, and I'm glad that there's no realistic way that would happen to me.
Should the kid have filed a lawsuit? Maybe not. Personally I would lean towards no. But there's a big gap between "a lawsuit is inappropriate here" and "What's the matter with this kid, he deserves what he got, why is this bullied, insecure 15-year-old acting so insecure and immature? He should just get over it." No doubt he will get over it, but give him a few years -- it took a lot of us that long even without a major roadblock like this.
[END RANT]
I am the man with no sig!
"When you feel alienated from school and everyone laughs at you, you DON'T CHOOSE to drop out. You HAVE TO."
Why?
I'll be waiting patiently for your answer as to why someone would be forced to leave school because they are embarassed.
And keep in mind, every answer you give won't change that he is reacting to other people.
"Of course, you haven't been ridiculized in public or bullied so what the heck do you know."
Exactly the opposite, actually.
Funny how you responded though, attack me because I'm not compassionate enough for you. Is that how you demonstrate how compassionate you are?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
ALL humor is Schadenfreude. The trick is keeping the cost down for the subjects while maximizing the benefit to the audience.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
>>"He had to drop out of school due to harassment."
:-)
>No, he CHOSE to drop out of school. He wasn't forced, stop portraying it that way.
Semantics.
You are re-defining 'forced' to exclusively mean physical force, as in assualt or violent harassment.
I do not think you honestly believe harassment only comes in physical forms, but building a `strawman'... then tearing it down is not exactly honest. You must be an aspiring politician.
I'm not sure what I think of the judgement, but you are letting your opinion get in the way of the argument and trying to frame the circumstances into something different, so you can attack it.
Watch it again and laugh
i d
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=star+wars+k
"bullying the bully doesn't change it"
That is absolutly incorrect. It is well know to those of us that beat the crap out of a bully or two in our youth, that a baseball bat to the head will change things very quickly. If you avoid arrest, the bully very quickly learns that you are not a "fun" target anymore.
No, he didn't waste the courts time. The little morons took something that wasn't theirs with the intent to cause harm to "Star Wars Kid" (Ghyslain Raza). They and their parents deserved to be slapped silly in the courts. You just want to stick up for the little thieves because you liked the video and are glad they stole it so you could have a laugh at Ghyslains expense.
7F23: "When Flanders Failed"
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/7F23.html
I am not a crackpot.
Comments like yours remind me why I hate internet forums.
First of all, you took what he said out of content. even though he said what you posted. you completely overlooked the main focus of his post, and chose to dwell only what you took issue with - not because it was offensive, but because it hit a nerve with some unresolved issues that you have.
Those kids were just being kids, everyone in that situation would have done the same thing. I would say Raza should have thought how video taping this ridiculous video AND LEAVING IT IN THE SCHOOL TV STUDIO would affect his life. I mean, did he expect no one to see it there?
That would be the point. And guess what? Like it or not, it's true. Young boys have been doing things of this nature for years. Even kids who aren't bullies play pranks on each other sometimes. Not because they're evil - because they're kids. Truth be told, you don't know what the relationship was between the kids. That's today's ultra-sensitive society - everyone's having fun, until someone gets mad, tells their parents, and someone's getting sued. Half of the time the kids intentions weren't even how they tried to depict them as.
But that's not why I hate the internet. I can tolerate views that differ from mine with no problem. What I can't stand is the attitude that's reflected in the comment that you made:
Yeah, I know your type well, if you're what I think you are. How's the gas-pumping business, ya fucking jock?
I take online abuse on a regular basis from people like you, and I wasn't even a jock. Not because I'm rude, because people like you who hold these types of things in. They walk around fine, but the moment they get into a situtation of power, they're hell to deal with. Support forums are full of them all over the internet. You see, after years of being bullied, you have your safe haven where you can say whatever you like to whoever you like, and they just have to take it. Whether their power is in being a moderator, or in having a bunch of friends on the board, they frequently abuse it. They walk around all the time with a chip on their shoulder, making curt and semi-sarcastic, hoping someone says something back so they can let them have it or boot them from a room.
That "Internet John Wayne" crap isn't any less offensive or abusive than the kids that posted a silly dance tape on the internet. At least the kid recorded it himself.
"He had a chance to make something that was embarrasing work out really well for him. "\\
Not everyone wants to debase their self respect just for cash.
I surely can, but I don't understand what crazy time has to do with the subject.
(Note for the humor impaired: I know the OP meant temporary insanity)
--
Worst. Sig. Evah.
There was a scene during the Order 66 montage that originally was supposed to involve Ghyslane Raza, where a Padawan takes out a metric buttload of Clone Troopers before being disposed of. Too bad that never happened and they got another kid for the role.
Certainly that would have been the ultimate vindication for the Star Wars Kid. Show him wielding a sabrestaff and kicking serious butt. I'm sure he would have gotten more than $300,000CA for the appearance. He'd be set for his entire college tuition even if he chose to become Ghyslane Raza, MD, Ghyslane Raza, DDS, or Ghyslane Raza, Esq., JD.
Of course, this is the *real* point behind the lawsuit. Make sure young Ghyslane's college tuition is paid for because the parents didn't save enough.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
...it doesn't really seem to me that those involved wanted to create this. For one they didn't create that, he did that of his own free will. The first guy found it, second guy digitized it, it got spread around a little on e-mail. Third guy says he didn't know the two others, just saw a funny clip passed around and made a website which got insanely popular. No, it wasn't nice. Yes, I probably would have done the same myself (and I got harassed at school so don't go all "you don't know what it's like" on me).
I mean, if these three had been working together to create this, then maybe. But this was more a case of pebbles starting an avalanche. Now I'm sorry the avalanche landed on Mr. Raza, but well... I don't think you should be punished for more than you intended to do, or reasonably could expect of consequences. It would be quite another thing if they were harassing him right up to the point where he freaked. But they dldn't, in fact they were as powerless to stop it themselves. Yes, someone found a funny tape and showed it to a buddy or two. That's not a $350000 offense.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I've been a victim of bullying almost my entire life. From grade school to work to the Internet. If some bully cannot dig up dirt on me, they just make stuff up. Now that I am an adult I can handle it better and decide not to be a victim and let it get to me, yet the damage has already been done.
This boy didn't ask to be bullied, and he apparently did the screen test and didn't want anyone else to see it. The bullies stole the video and released it on the Internet, now they are paying for it.
Not everyone can handle bullying, and it puts a lot of emotional and psychological damage on a person. It takes a lot to learn to be a survivor rather than a victim as well. For me, it was well over 30 years before I finally came to terms with it and started to try to be a survivor. Only to suffer mental and physical illnesses so bad that I cannot work for a living. I only hope to heal up and get better and get back to work one day.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Why weren't they prosecuted if they were thieves? That's a criminal court's jurisdiction, not a civil court's.
"The little morons took something that wasn't theirs with the intent to cause harm"
What harm? He was embarassed, and frankly, if you think that's worthy of wasting a CIVIL court's time, then I'm wasting my time with you.
Here's what really happened. Rich brat does something stupid, tapes it, it gets out, he's embarassed, rich brat's mom and dad give him what he wants (just like they always have) and files suit. Rich kid's parents have enough money to bleed other kids parents dry, so they settle.
You might not like it, and you can make up all the stupid justifications for why you feel how you feel, but all you've done is support a rich spoiled brat abusing the courts to get something his parents never gave him and can't buy him. Self respect.
And even after it's over, he's the spoiled brat "Star Wars" kid, only now instead of being funny, he's that asshole who sued because he was embarrassed.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
> In case you didn't laugh the first time....
You may have a perfectly-working sense of humour. The video is not funny, it's 100% stupid. Some kid jumping around like a Methed Manatee. Big deal.
What's REALLY funny is his claim in court that "he let himself go and no longer lifted weights to keep fit." That fat fuck wasn't "fit" when it was recorded, so unless he had his stomach stapled between then and when he found out it was on the Internet, he's a fat fucking LIAR.
(Full disclosure: I am also a fat fuck and partial idiot; the difference is that I don't claim otherwise.)
But at least you have a charming personality!
Re-read my post. I said no such thing. I'm sympathizing with him because he went through a terrible experience. I don't think 15 is an age where you can really say "Ah, you're a jerk? Then you deserve to be humiliated before the whole world!" If it were, most of us would have deserved that (or maybe still do).
I also don't care that some other more well-adjusted person might have taken what the other children intended to be a terrible experience and made it into a positive one. That level of maturity is something we should strive for ourselves, rather than using it as a stick with which to beat anyone who does not yet have it. One of the marks of real maturity is patience with those who do not yet have it. Give the kid a break.
These kind of responses remind me of the more popular kids in junior high who would harrass me constantly, and when I finally broke down and showed in some way that they were bothering me, would be like "Geez, what's your problem? Can't you take a joke?"
No, I wasn't always the nicest person at that age (I think most of us weren't, if we're honest), but I don't think that justifies that kind of treatment, and I don't think it's okay to humiliate someone, then blame them for minding.
The lawsuit is BS, okay, maybe. But grow up and stop hounding people who are weaker than you.
I am the man with no sig!
oh wait... the one with the lightsaber effects!
r %20wars%20kid
http://youtube.com/watch?v=26B-Ia0Dvu0&search=sta
Star Wars Kid Cuts a Deal With His Tormentors
You mean he sued Krispy Kreme for the way all those donuts endlessly tormented him?
I wouldn't normally make a cheap fat joke but something in the article got to me:
He said the situation left him feeling drained of energy, and that he let himself go and no longer lifted weights to keep fit.
Watch that video again sometime. Imagine how the ripplingly muscled greek adonis of that video must look now.
Oh, wait... He was a fat, dorky, clumsy idiot before the video ever got distributed. And distributing the video made him a fat, dorky, clumsy idiot?
I'm not saying it's cool that kids get bullied in highschool but one look at him tells you there's probably not a highschool on earth where he wouldn't have been the butt of endless jokes.
He was overweight, had a lousy haircut, was so mal-coordinated he couldn't stand upright when wiggling a broomstick, and was evidently an affirmed StarWars nerd. This is a kid who, whether bullying is acceptable or not, I think we can be pretty certain was bullied long before this video ever came out.
The one thing that changed was he got a degree of celebrity from this one which shifted it in to something OK to wallow in.
Most kids manage something utterly humiliating during their school lives. They wet themselves. They get dumped in public. They get their asses handed to them by a kid several years younger. Their yearbook picture catches them adjusting themselves. Their dad goes to jail. Whatever the case, they become the talk of the school for a couple of weeks. Their parents give them the tough but true advice, "Don't show that it bothers you and wait it out. In two or three weeks, someone else will have done something stupid."
In his case, the net gave him just enough celebrity to truly wallow. Instead of laughing and saying, "Yeah, it was pretty dorky, wasn't it." then leaving it two weeks to quieten down, he was pulled out of school. Instead of weathering it and waiting for it to die down, he gave interviews. Instead of being told, "Yeah, damn straight it sucks but it happens to everyone. You're just going to have to tough it out." this became "The Internet" and he was handed a great excuse to wallow. The really sad thing is, it's the wallowing that's likely done him the most harm.
Yeah, he'd have always got the odd joke about being the Star Wars kid but it would have died down. Instead, being allowed to wallow, he was able to completely sever all ties with normal teenage society. Instead of being allowed to cry at home every night for a week or two and then slowly face it, he was taken to a doctor and given meds, being told it was a reasonable response to be so upset. Instead of slowly accepting that, yeah, life does suck but you have to deal anyway, he was taught that his problems were someone else's fault and so he didn't have to take any responsibility in moving through them and coming out stronger on the far side.
I hate the bullying I faced as a kid. Some of it still hurts a huge amount. I'm also vastly more successful in life now because I had to come back from it and find a way through rather than was allowed to stay home, get home schooled, and wallow in how unfair everyone else was.
And so, when I hear how a fat kid who didn't exercise was so traumatized by his bullying that he "stopped pumping iron and really let [himself] go," I have to question how much of the problem was the same bullying that sucks utterly but toughens up most of us and how much was him getting a damned convenient excuse for many things that were already true.
How many guys out there "could have gone all the way" in their chosen sport before the got some terrible injury. And how many of them, if totally honest, never would have made it and the injury was a damned good excuse to stop trying and instead talk about what they could have been?
Is he any different other than that one video, that almost certainly wasn't the first time he was bullied, gave him a good excuse to stop trying in life and blame someone else for where he was, most likely, going to end up anyway?
Yes, the original isn't funny. The edited version with the lightsabres is clever and produces a light chuckle. The 'Attack of the Clones' version is absolutely one of the funniest videos I have seen on the internet. Should this kid sue for being 'bullied'? I would think that he would have more success if he had been able to sue them for copyright infringement. The video was not copyrighted (I would assume), but I would imagine it would fall under the precident of the Pamela/Tommy video or the Paris Hilton video. But, IANAL, so I tend to have a sense of humor and no sense of law.
"...puns and knock-knock jokes..."
No, he said humor.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
If you don't think puns and knock-knock jokes are suffering then you must be the bastard that keeps telling those damned jokes.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
When people solved problems with bullies with good old fashioned violence.
Seriously, though... I know it's not politically correct to say that violence is the answer, but when dealing with bullies it usually is. The primary reason why things get this bad is because teachers and parents often tell kids that "violence is never the answer," or "use your words" in a situation where that clearly will never win the respect of any peers or gain any satisfaction for the bullied child. All that happens is that bullied children are forced to repress their rage, and bullies are left unpunished and learn that their behavior will be tolerated.
For members of the younger generation, whatever your parents might tell you, in some situations you are better off standing your ground and getting into a fight.
Good lord, what is with people that they keep believing this nonsense? Why do extroverted people insist on believing that introverted people are deeply unhappy about their state, and would be able to have a normal happy life if only they could learn to socialize the way all the extroverts do? Why is there this persistent myth that if only we could learn to socialize and act normally, we would be popular and happy, too? Many of us are happy with our lives and our friends, and don't want to live our lives like you. People like different things. Go figure.
To answer your accusation: No, I did not secretly wish anything like that. I wished, and not at all secretly, that the popular kids would leave me the hell alone.
I'm not ordinarily bitter about my experiences back then -- they were terrible at the time, but I'm over them. If I sound bitter, it's a product of these threads, which are reminding me again that people really don't (care to) understand what a lot of kids go through.
In any case, I can function socially these days, and have on the whole recovered from my "awkward stage" -- I'm even comfortable giving talks in front of crowds, something I understand even "normal" people often dislike -- but I am not an extrovert and have no wish to be, and I will never be one of the cool kids. This is fine with me. I wish people would stop thinking that people like me would be happy if only they could fix us.
I am the man with no sig!