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The Star Wars Kid Is Back
An anonymous reader writes "It was eight years ago that Ghyslain Raza slashed his way into our hearts with his Star Wars Kid video. Sadly, Raza suffered from severe bullying and abuse for his video and eventually ended up in a psychiatric ward for children. However, his video was seen 1 billion times and multiple thousands of geeks came immediately to his defense. While those must have been the worst years of his life, things are now looking up."
There are millions of lawyers, but there is only one Star Wars Kid. Dare to be different!
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
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I laughed at him. I laugh my ass off. I laughed for the same reason most people laughed. We''ve all done something that turned out to be massively embarrassing.
If you say you didn't laugh, I suspect you are impaired or a liar.
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I didn't, I thought the video was awesome.
I don't think he's alone when they say that the worst years of my life were, in fact, high school. Cliques full of assholes and status seeking social climbing butterflies pretty much achieved status by picking on people like me. I actually found the group of punks (smoking, piercings, tattoos, apathy, loud music, etc) to be the most welcoming group of people despite my lack of smoking, the fact that I listened to The Beatles and watched X-Files. The only people that seemed to really thrive in that crap were the popular kids and college was a welcomed change. I went from having four or five close friends in high school to entire crowds of people that I loved to talk to.
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Having been made fun of for reading Star Wars books in grade school, I sympathize with this kid though my pain was not on a global level like his. Still, I bet if you asked him now if he could go back and do things differently it would probably be better not to sue and instead milk that fifteen minutes by going on SNL or Conan O'Brien or even trying for a cameo in one of the Wayans Brothers' parody comedy flicks. Jesus, I bet he could make good money if he charged $5,000 per video and set up a site where he recorded himself doing his spiel and saying "Happy Birthday <insert your name here>" or "I only twirl around like a moron when I'm eating my <insert your food product here>!" And then just kept rerecording himself doing that. You might as well milk it and have fun with it
Anybody know how Daniel Tosh gets around these potential lawsuits when he displays videos on Comedy Central in his show Tosh.0? I mean, I'm sure he gets permission first or it comes from a country with lax copyright laws but what kind of logic do they pitch to the guys that do just outrageously stupid things? "You did something stupid by starting a gasoline can on fire but you have the chance to do something smart and let me show it?"
My work here is dung.
"I'm sorry to hear that the Star Wars kid decided to be a blood sucking lawyer."
Yep, they're all evil until YOU need one to help you navigate the law, or until the EFF uses them to fight for your rights.
Lawyers don't sue, PLAINTIFFS sue.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
He'll never be able to hide from it. He has to embrace it. Own it. "Yes, I'm the Star Wars kid. Thankfully, lightsaber skills aren't a requirement for this job!" Ha ha. We've all done stupid shit in our lives. His happened to be seen by a lot more people and that really sucks. I'm not saying it's easy but he has to come to terms with it.
And who knows, maybe this news story is coming from him. Maybe he's finally ready to get back out there.
Look at Tron Guy. He's owned it. Good lord, I would have wanted to lock myself away for a while after hearing what people were saying after seeing the pics. But he rolled with it. Of course, he was a bit more "mature" than a highschooler and that could explain the differences is how they dealed with their "fame".
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Make all the lawyer jokes you want, but if this kid had picked up a gun and smoked 4 or 5 of his tormentors, we'd all be having a very different conversation right now. That he has managed to do anything productive with his life is a testament to his mental and moral fortitude.
What's sad is that in the day and age where Napoleon Dynamite is a big selling movie and cool, he's only ironically cool and for anyone who actually does do something in real life that's funny or etc. they get bullied forever and there appear to be no consequences for the bullies.
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Aging changes perspective. For a high school kid, appearing as a fat, awkward kid in a famous internet video is epic shame. But for an adult angling to be a lawyer and a politician, *having appeared* some years before in a famous internet video is a great advantage. I rather think he has come to terms with his fame and is using it to his advantage. Good for him.
I used to do that all the time, but I got tired of my submissions getting passed over for days/(weeks) and then once the rest of the major online media outlets decided it was worthy to report someone else's late submission got pushed though.
Why should I waste my time with submissions that never go though when making snarky comments is infinitely more entertaining and rewarding?
Collector's Edition
I have an impairment called "empathy". That video made me sad, because I could imagine the position that kid was in.
Sucks to be me, I guess.
Yeah, shame on him for not wanting to relive his most painful childhood memory every day.
Why not? Another /.'er does ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
But as someone who knows the ins and outs of the law, you are qualified to defend those who do produce value from those who would exploit or stop them.
majority of them have proven themselves willing to take frivolous or evil cases
Citation???? "Majority" is a very specific word, with a specific meaning, which is not equal to "lots"
In short, this is utter bullshit. Most lawers never set foot in a courtroom and take "Cases" in the adversarial us vs them sense. They are the people who write contracts, advise clients on how to be compliant with truckloads of government regulations, etc.
I too used to write stuff and post it to slashdot, or find something interesting and have it rejected while stuff that was not half as interesting got through. ... Oh some of the stuff I posted I considered not that great, but I figured, what the hey, if the other stuff gets through maybe this will.
I gave up. I really do think its a club ... if you are not part of the club you don't get your stuff published but I didn't come here to talk about this, I came to comment on that kid being bullied....
In high school, assholes abound so much that instead of acne they should be sprouting assholes instead of little bumps.
Too many punks getting away with insanity. They should have patted the kid on the back and told him it was a cool video - Which it was!!!!
Maybe instead of having emotional damage he might have started feeling better about himself and work out and be buffed up or become the next Spielberg or George Lucas.
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
I think that the guy sucks for not parlaying all that exposure into something.
Spoken like a true marketing idiot. Not everyone is a fame whore and thinks that fame == $$. Think about it: if he wanted fame, he'd have uploaded the video himself. The kid is a nerd at heart and did something that he thought was cool -- and he had fun doing it. Yeah, I laughed when I saw the video, but I also thought it was pretty cool; there's nothing wrong with a kid indulging his sci-fi fantasy. He had fun making a tape then tossed it aside. How is it that he sucks just because he didn't react to his fame with dollar signs in his eyes? The "opportunities" you speak of are not necessarily opportunities to everyone. So he sucks because he doesn't have the greedy mindset that you have? Who the hell modded this "Insightful" ?!
So lawyers can make more money. QED
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.