Thursday, August 21, 2003

One of the nice things about being "of a certain age" is that this technology didn't exist when I was 15. If it did, I would surely have had some of my various adventures wind up on the Internet.

Read this, go to the site, scroll down to "The Original Star Wars Kid," sit back and enjoy (oh, and then go watch this because it's fucking brilliant too):

The Star Wars Kid was just goofing off at school. Now he finds his private performance downloaded by over 12 million Internet users across the world.

The Star Wars Kid is a 15-year-old from Quebec known only as Ghyslain. Back in November 2002, Ghyslain was goofing off at a school video studio and recorded himself fighting a mock battle with a golf ball retriever lightsaber. Over two minutes, the video shows the lone, overweight teenager twirling his mock lightsaber ever faster while making his own accompanying sound effects.

Yes, we've all had our dorky, private moments, but this poor kid is living the nightmare of having his private dorkiness projected across the world to giggling Web users. His friends found the tape, and uploaded it to KaZaA as a joke on April 19. Within two weeks, someone had added full Star Wars special effects and noises to the tape, and the video was linked on gaming, technology, and Star Wars-related sites across the Internet.

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