Star Wars Kid  Star Wars Kid plays Light Saber

The infamous "Star Wars Kid" phenomenon all started innocently enough on November 8, 2002, when a Canadian junior high-schooler named Ghyslain Raza videotaped himself pretending to be Darth Maul, a character from the Star Wars movies. Using a golf ball retriever for a lightsaber, Raza shot the video at a studio in his school and left the tape lying around, thinking nothing of it.

In April of 2003, however, something happened that would change Raza's life: Several of his classmates discovered the video. Thinking it would be a good prank, they posted the video clip to the Internet using a peer-to-peer file-sharing service.

Over the course of the next several weeks, the video circulated around the globe. Some users made customized versions of the clip, adding music and special effects. Meanwhile, Raza did not find the episode funny at all, and in fact suffered considerable embarrassment and harassment as a result of his newfound fame. Because it raised privacy issues related to internet use, the story was picked up by the New York Times, BBC News, and other large news bureaus.

Raza's family filed a lawsuit against their son's classmates in 2003, but settled out of court in April of 2006 for an undisclosed amount. Nevertheless, the Star Wars Kid has remained a cultural phenomenon, and has been referenced on the video game Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and even featured on the Jumbotron at the San Francisco Giants' AT&T Park. References have also appeared in numerous television shows, including Arrested Development, Veronica Mars, and American Dad.