The Star Wars Kid

The Star Wars Kid as a 15-year-old French Canadian named Ghyslain. Ghyslain couldn't be reached for comment.

A lone, overweight teenager fighting a mock battle with a broomstick light saber. The teenager twirls the broomstick ever more energetically while generating his own light saber sound effects. This is the video that a 15 year old high school student made in the AV lab. He could never imagine that his fellow students would discover the video and post it to the internet using a peer to peer network, Kazaa.

It took two weeks for the video to spread around the world. A week later an edited version of the video, which added music, video and sound effects, was created by Raven Software's Bryan Dube. Both videos were soon posted on web sites worldwide and millions of people were downloading the files.

Now a whole site and many more are dedicated to the videos and the 100+ remixes that have been created. A petition was even organized to try to ge the young man into one of the Star Wars movies.

This piece thrives on the publics desire to see people in embarrassing situations. The uniqueness of this piece is that there is a fondness for the boy that a lot of people have. I think a lot of us have been in embarrassing situations during our awkward teens and can directly relate to the mind set of The Star Wars Kid. The amazing aspect is the way the video has evolved and been remixed into so many versions. The list continues to grow. The time and expertise that goes into these clips is very impressive.

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