The Tragic Story Of The “Star Wars Kid,” The Internet’s First Viral Meme Who Never Wanted To Be Famous

He was just a shy teenager fooling around with a golf ball retriever in an empty school studio.

But within months, the boy who would become known across the internet as the “Star Wars Kid” was one of the most recognizable faces online and the target of relentless global ridicule.

The viral clip, filmed in 2003, shows a 14-year-old student from Trois-Rivières swinging a long metal stick like a lightsaber, mimicking dramatic battle moves from science-fiction films.

The teenager, later identified as Ghyslain Raza, had recorded the footage privately while alone in his school’s video studio.

It was never meant for anyone else to see.

But after classmates discovered the tape, they uploaded the video online without his knowledge — unknowingly unleashing what would become one of the first truly viral moments in internet history.

The clip soon spread across early websites, message boards and email chains, quickly racking up millions of views during the infancy of online video sharing.

A blogger named Andy Baio reposted the footage and gave it the nickname that would follow Raza for the rest of his life: “Star Wars Kid.”

Within months, the awkward but harmless clip had been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

The phenomenon became one of the earliest internet memes, inspiring countless remixes in which users edited special effects into the footage so the teenager appeared to be wielding a glowing lightsaber.

The video was soon referenced in pop culture, with shows including South Park, Arrested Development and The Colbert Report parodying the now-famous clip.

But while millions laughed, the teenager at the center of the video was struggling with the fallout.

Raza had never consented to the video being shared, and the sudden global attention quickly turned cruel.

Strangers on the internet mocked him relentlessly, with some even telling him to end his life.

The attention soon spread beyond the internet.

Local reporters tracked the boy down at school and attempted to photograph him through the window blinds of his family home.

The pressure became so overwhelming that Raza eventually left school and continued his education through private tutoring.

He also required psychiatric care as he tried to cope with the humiliation and harassment that followed the viral video.

His family later filed a lawsuit against the classmates who uploaded the footage, eventually reaching a settlement outside of court.

After the case concluded, Raza withdrew almost entirely from public life.

For nearly two decades, he remained silent about the video that had made him famous.

During that time, he quietly focused on rebuilding his life.

Raza went on to earn degrees in civil and common law from McGill University before beginning work toward a doctorate at Queen's University.

It was not until 2022 that he finally agreed to speak publicly about the experience as part of a documentary exploring the origins of viral internet culture.

During filming, he met face-to-face with Andy Baio — the blogger who had helped propel the video to worldwide fame.

Baio, who has since become chief technology officer of the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, told Raza he had long regretted sharing the clip.

“I have enormous regret about posting the video,” he said during their meeting.

The classmates who originally uploaded the footage have never publicly apologized.

Raza, however, chose to accept Baio’s apology, describing him as someone who had made a mistake during the chaotic early days of the internet.

After the cameras stopped rolling, the two men moved on from the painful subject.