this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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I remember the back story of this. The kid who recorded this left the tape in his a/V class which was then found by other students. He was then bullied to the point of having to leave his school, if I remember correctly. No real point that I'm making just remember thinking it was interesting
I’ll have to call my guy who specializes in sad but not entirely tragic backstories to see how it impacts the value. It’ll probably increase it a bit but not as much as your thinking. Plus I’m gonna have to clean it up, frame it, make space for it on the floor…it’ll probably sit in the shop for weeks. I’m probably interested at about $8.50.
“By the end of May 2003, the video had received extensive coverage from mainstream news media outlets, including The New York Times.[11] Unfortunately, Raza was humiliated and finished school in a psychiatric ward.”
Source: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/star-wars-kid
To me this is probably one of the original memes. It was parodied by Family Guy, Arrested Development and I’ve seen it elsewhere as well.
For sure one of the first "viral videos". He was bullied mercilessly, if he would have made as big of a video like 5 years later he probably would have been famous (not infamous) instead.
If he made it today he’d get buried in /new. The internet was a different place back then, we talked about the same funny video for months.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/star-wars-kid-reflects-on-his-2003-viral-video-the-media-circus-and-human-nature-1.5841434
Fascinating, thank you for showing us the human behind the meme.
It's always bothered me that people laughed at it, to be honest. It's "let's laugh at the fat kid." Sure, he's doing something silly. So what? Haven't we all done silly things? But he's also fat. And I think that's a big part of this.
Also, it's a lot of adults laughing at a child, which is just sick to me.
His weight adds a lot to it I’m sure, but his general lack of grace or coordination is generally what makes it funny to people imo. Like it’s a hilariously bad impression of a lightsaber battle, so bad that I think most people assumed it was staged/self-aware. I think it could be a 60 year old woman or an 8 year old kid, it’d still be funny.
As an adult watching it I laughed because I remembered that awkward age and was probably just as awkward (also overweight!). I also definitely felt super sorry for that kid. "Haha! Oh man... That poor kid!"
It's funny to adults because we have a sense that kids are naive and do stupid stuff and it's hilarious ("Hah! Check out this silly kid..."). We laugh at our own young stupidity as well when reminiscing (well, I do anyway haha).
It wasn't until someone added the light saber effects to the video that I laughed really hard. Like, ROFLOLCOPTER levels of laughing hard. That was a whole new level of Internet funny I had never experienced before. When it reached that level of ridiculousness I remember thinking, "I hope this kid takes this in stride and understands the joy his silly video is bringing to the world and doesn't just get super depressed."
Unfortunately we all know now how it went 😢
Raza is now the president of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivières, a society dedicated to the conservation of his hometown, and that he was studying law at McGill University in Montreal.
Damn, kid was a good student too. Was probably doing everything he was supposed to and having some nerdy fun along the way, and people just had to be pricks to the poor kid.
So he can sue his bullies?
The movie Tusk has a small part where the main character went to interview their universe's star wars kid. Made the whole thing a little less fun.