Star Wars Kid stumbles into online fame
By Janet Kornblum
USA Today
It started with a dancing baby.
In 1997, the diaper-clad virtual cherub gyrating on your computer screen was showing up everywhere.
Call him one of the Net's first pop-culture stars.
Since then there have been more Web sensations than California gubernatorial candidates. But few have reached dancing-baby status.
This summer, the unlikely Internet phenomenon is the Star Wars Kid, as he has come to be known because of a two-minute video.
The 15-year-old Canadian, Ghyslain Raza, never meant for the world to see a video showing him doing martial arts moves with a golf ball retriever, pretending to fight with a light saber á la "Star Wars."
He left the video in class, where other students found it and posted it on the Internet as a joke.
Now it's on hundreds of Web sites and has been passed around, enhanced and, of course, discussed ad nauseam. Some Net users have even started petitions calling on George Lucas to include the kid in his next "Star Wars" movie.
Just when the buzz was starting to die down, the teen's parents sued the parents of the kids they accuse of posting the video on the Net. They say their son has had to endure "harassment and derision from his high school mates and the public at large," according to the Canadian Press agency.
And now, thanks to news of the lawsuit, "he's more popular than ever," says Aaron Schatz, who tracks the Net's most popular searches at 50.lycos.com. Searches for Star Wars Kid surged to No. 39 for the week ending Aug. 23, beating out kids' card game Yu-Gi-Oh! and actress Angelina Jolie.
The incident illustrates the mysterious power of the Net to create a global sensation — whether it's the Star Wars Kid, dancing hamsters or Mahir, the ebullient Turk whose "I kiss you!" Web greeting made him an online star.
"It's hard to say why certain things capture the imagination online," Schatz says. "Why the 'I kiss you' guy? Why him? I don't know. I mean, there's really no answer to that."
But the need to share a joke or intriguing discovery is a "pretty common human thing to want to do," says Steve Jones, communications professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
And online, it happens as quickly as a click of the mouse.
