10 years later, ‘Star Wars Kid’ speaks out | Hacker News Reader

10 years later, ‘Star Wars Kid’ speaks out

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275 pointssharkweek150 comments

A lot of the conversation around this talks about the Internet. Note this from the article:

    Raza said he lost what few friends he had in the fallout, and had to change schools. “In the common room, students climbed onto tabletops to insult me,” he told L’actualité.

All "cyberbullying" does is prevent the bullying from stopping when the kids go home. Potential anonymity is a negligible factor as far as I can tell.

Yes, being world famous probably escalated the reach of his ridicule, but even if it never left his school, what was essentially his whole world turned against him. As someone else mentions in a comment there doesn't seem to be anything we can do to prevent this sort of pack behavior. But I hope someone does figure out a way.

    > All "cyberbullying" does is prevent the bullying
    > from stopping when the kids go home.

It also changes the jurisdiction for the bullying. School policies and enforcement cover bullying that happens in school. Off campus, however, it's less clear. It might still be covered by the school's rules. It might be a private matter between families. It might be a legal matter.

> Off campus, however, it's less clear.

Off campus, 'bullying' is harassment and possibly assault. Or are those not actually crimes when the victim is a child?

It's the same on campus FYI, there is no magic law-immunity field around schools.

The police tend not to get involved because they believe parents and teachers are better placed to fix this behaviour than the law. And in general bullying in children is something that needs other than criminal punishment imo.

Obviously children need protection in all of their spheres of existence. At school its supposed to be teachers. At home (and on the internet) it's supposed to be their parents. And the layer above that is always the police and the state. That never changes.

As an aside, cyber bullying is super interesting to me, because when I was at school, home was the safety net. But so was the wotmania forum/chat room (when i was allowed to use the phone line...).

So much of the internet is annonymous, and that is part of what I enjoyed. There was no "social" then, or not really. Just a completely different way of being online I suppose?

All "cyberbullying" does is prevent the bullying from stopping when the kids go home.

That's a pretty big 'all'

Let's not turn this discussion into what's pretty big and what isn't

I thought that "all" was supposed to be sarcastic, but maybe I misunderstood. Anyway, I interpreted it as sarcasm.

I've seen this with some of my kids. In my day, home was a safe sanctuary. The internet and associated hardware has penetrated the sanctity of the home, and its no longer a safe haven from the nasty harsh out side world.

The internet has destroyed that. IMHO, it is the single worst thing the internet has done.

I sincerely hope no one suggests that parents should exclude their kids from the internet which allows the bullys to win and control cyber space. Worse still, it then excludes them from the friends they might still have, and a lot of things the victim can use to fight back, and distract them selves from the nastiness. The internet is more good than bad.

I think laws for cyber bullying should have harsher penalties than normal face to face bullying. Face to face stuff is limited by physical proximity and time, cyber bullying can be 24/7. If bullied at school, the kid can escape it by going home after school, and not being there at weekends. With cyber bullying, you might not even get an evening off, let alone a week end.

Your front door has penetrated the sanctity of your home, and it's no longer a safe haven from the nasty harsh outside world because you leave it open all the time.

Internet doesn't penetrate anything. It's not like I plug my network cable in and my screen gets flooded with things I don't want to see or hear. It just displays a small popup saying "You're now connected".

Internet can actually be controlled much better than other technologies. Try stopping prank callers or abusive text messages. In your e-mail client it is just adding one simple rule and they all end up in my junk box.

Only if you go on sites that have the ability to receive messages from people (and where those people know who you are). You can choose to go to those sites, or to go elsewhere.

At school, when the bullies are following you around the playground all day long, you've got nowhere to hide.

Also, most cyberbullying typically leaves a papertrail behind it - you can take the Facebook posts or whatever as evidence of what's going on. In the physical world, that's often a lot harder to get.

The point is that the bullying goes from something fairly local (school), that can be escaped, to spreading around the world. This particular kid could move to Cambodia and some people there will probably recognize him.

There's a big difference between cyberbullying - using the internet/mobile phones etc to bully people - and physical bullying that's happened as a result of being recognised from the internet (or from newspapers, TV etc).

I still don't understand what kind of mentality it takes for a person to say, in sincerity, "Kill yourself." That's just ... wow. Do they understand what they're saying?

Probably some mixture of [1] and [2].

[1] = http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

[2] = They probably, at the end of the day, are not sincere. Instead, they are probably wordvomiting the pithiest, meanest thing they can think of in 3 seconds.

In fact, they are probably well aware that people tend to react like sukuriant, and their goal is probably to upset people rather than to cause them to commit suicide.

Nobody implied they want (or hope) to cause them to commit suicide.

It's the "upset people" that's disgusting in itself.

For one, you are HN "dead". And rightly so from what it seems.

Second, you are rude.

Third, what you propose is called "blame the victim". It's immature, rude and equally bad as the bullying itself.

“you are HN "dead". And rightly so from what it seems.”

Then perhaps we shouldn’t tip him off? Isn’t that the whole point of hellbans: they get to spill their venom and we can just ignore them.

Uhhhhh, he doesn't look hellbanned to me, unless that single comment did it. Which would be pretty extreme looking at his history.

It’s possible he’s not hellbanned, and I didn’t mean to imply that the latest comment triggered it. An earlier comment from 5 days a go led me to believe he is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5660848

Hmm, that one is more problematic. I only skimmed his top level comments.

They're expressing the average 15yo worldview which is that social acceptance is everything and embarassment by your peers is literally a fate worse than death. It's pretty fucked up, but also I think an inevitable part of growing up for most except for maybe a few hard-core geeks whose passions supercede whatever social narcotics their peers subject them to.

>embarassment by your peers is literally a fate worse than death

I hadn't considered that specific viewpoint, yet it makes so much sense.

Adolescent 17-year-old here, it is actually my greatest fear. But I do not have the healthiest mental state.

The liberation from this fear comes in a somewhat disingenuous way: humility. I'm not saying that as a slight against you (as if you are proud) in any way whatsoever. Nor am I espousing humility as a sort of passive acceptance of "the way things are." But by recognizing, patiently overcoming, and forgiving yourself for your weaknesses and struggles -- and by offering others the same -- you will find that, over time, this fear will lose most of its strength.

Furthermore, you won't be offended when others judge, reject, or humiliate you. Instead you will feel a sorrow for those who live in such a way, a sorrow that can hopefully be nurtured into compassion. If this sorrow turns into a holier-than-thou attitude, though, then we have a problem. :) The way to avoid this is through honest recognition of one's own weaknesses; once again, humility.

Emotions and opinions are fickle; the way people treat others reflects as much about the struggles and burdens they bear as they do about how they might "really" feel about something. To make ourselves beholden to other people's opinions and judgments is to necessarily strap ourselves to a roller coaster.

As someone who used to struggle with this a lot -- albeit unconsciously, because I was the one who was harsh towards others -- this is my experience.

College offers you a much larger group of people surrounding you, so it's harder to judge everyone. And in turn, you recognize that people are judging you less. This is part of the freedom that you feel when you exit high school, I think :)

Let's keep some things in mind.

Adolescence is the onset of adulthood before the capacity to function as a real adult in the real world is reached. One of the things that adolescents search for is some form of personal validation besides their parents and immediate family. It is probably close enough to true that we are biologically driven to look for this outside acceptance.

Unfortunately our society favors heavily segregating children based on age. That results in confused & clueless teens begging for acceptance from equally clueless people from the same wing of the same asylum.

Once in the real world a functional adult who can hold down a job finds there are a million ways to find personal validation. Teens do not have that opportunity; they (often) imagine that the opinion of other teenagers is the only path to validation.

I'd never heard of the age segregation explanation, it's very interesting since it implies this degree of behavior isn't inevitable. Are there any references for this claim?

This very long NY Magazine piece meditates on that topic, "Why You Never Truly Leave High School": http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/

I can't remember if the author states any scholarly work to support the idea, but she talks about it at length. One thing that I think is well established is that kids mostly being around other kids all day is a relatively modern phenomenon. It's a long piece, but it resonated with me.

I went searching for a great article I read on this lately but couldn't find it: the gist is that until schools become de rigueur, adolescents never spent time together as a group as they would be at work/apprenticeships whathaveyou with adult 'supervision'. It's a new phenomenon that leaves delicate minds in a Lord of the Flies situation. The study I read showed that even the 'cool' kids thought they weren't cool and the various coping mechanisms have been fodder for hollywood movies and novels since the last decades.

I found this http://www.faqs.org/childhood/So-Th/Teenagers.html that claims that schooling past the age of 14 went from rare to normal between 1901 and 1940.

And then of course there is further segregation based on academic ability, which may be even worse than age segregation.

"Adolescence is the onset of adulthood before the capacity to function as a real adult in the real world is reached."

In the past, adolescence was the onset of adulthood, period. In many parts of the world that's probably still true. It's our modern society that keeps young adults trapped in childhood until they're 18-21+.

That aside, I think it's the parent's responsibility to make sure their kids develop the capacity to function as adults by the time they have to start dealing with this stuff. Unfortunately that often doesn't happen, which leads to the problems you describe.

Maybe what we need to be doing is teaching the parents how to teach their children to be adults, through a medium that reaches both the parents and the children. We need "How to be an Adult" video games on mobile phones, perhaps.

This is a humorous book that contains some actually useful information for the young male adolescent trying to make the shaky steps

http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Man-John-Birmingham/dp/18759892...

It's written tongue in cheek but beneath the humor lies some great messages : you're all grown up now, start looking after things.

Here in Germany I saw people up to 26 years old being referred to as adolescents. That's the typical age when you're done with the university.

The whole adolescence thing is also quite a ridiculous social construct (it didn't exist in the 19th century).

Young people (13-21 year olds) should be seen as adults in training.

Instead they are given the role of adolescents, a role that they gladly take on. When you call someone an adolescent you set a very, very low bar. An adolescent doesn't want to grow, its pleasures are vain, its world secluded. The adolescent doesn't become an adult, since it is already "there" (the place that pop-culture glamorizes). Adolescence is thus seem as an end in itself.

Now if we lived in world where people didn't get old, and bills didn't need to be paid, we could all be adolescents forever and maybe there would not be any problem (though I would object on aesthetic grounds).

But the world being what it is, letting a young person live its youth as an "adolescent" and then forcing it to become an adult is a cruel thing. (And lets not forget all the kids for whom "adolescence" is far from pleasurable.)

The trouble is I don't believe that all, or even most of the people who told him to kill himself were teenagers. I have no problem believing that there are adults out there who also would have joined in.

Many who enter adolescence do not ever leave.

The internet creates big pockets of social groups that have no consideration of age, race, social status, etc. There's an interesting side-effect of looking for validation from your peers when you don't know what those people are actually like. We can act more mature by looking up to a mature audience, we can look down on a less mature audience, or we can resonate with the values of a less mature audience. I went from Digg to reddit to HN mainly due to interests/content, but also because I looked up to the more mature audiences. Some people will stick to platforms where they are entertained by immaturity and seek those people's validation by mimicking them.

Honestly I think it is more an expression of the average 15yo mindset that it is fun to be mean and kick people while they are down.

Required reading : Paul Graham; why nerds are unpopular

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

This is an incredibly insightful piece, one of the best. It talks about how, as a society, we shunt kids into a lord of the flies situation, and we force them to build skills that have little use outside the schoolyard. The problem is a lack of mentoring and not treating adolescents as people entering adulthood, but rather as a problem to be managed.

Lots of cultures have initiations and rites of passage, and into this modern void hazing, bullying and downright weird stuff has popped up amongst peers rather than elders.

I don't have the answer but it does cause a lot of problems.

For almost everyone who says that on the internet, they are nat saying it with almost any sense of sincerity. They don't want the person to actually kill themselves, they just say it.

They say it because in their circles, that's a perfectly acceptable thing to say, and no one would interpret it as anything more than an expression of disapproval. (think 4chan, many subreddits, etc.).

They then forget that outside of their circles, people aren't necessarily privy to such culture, and say it anyway. It probably doesn't even cross their mind that they're saying something hurtful.

>They say it because in their circles, that's a perfectly acceptable thing to say, and no one would interpret it as anything more than an expression of disapproval. (think 4chan, many subreddits, etc.).

I like how you qualify your statement in regards to reddit by saying "subreddits", which implies that it's only a portion of reddit that demonstrates such behavior, but make no such distinction about 4chan, which, contrary to popular belief, does not solely consist of /b/, and in fact has a number of boards that are actually quite civil.

That said, your point is valid, and, as a regular of one of the more vitriolic boards, I sometimes forget to "switch modes" so to speak, and find myself acting in the manner you describe. My anecdote, for what it's worth.

Unfortunately, people tend to be less then kind when divorced from the consequences of their actions. It's easy to hate, bully, and demean someone you've never personally met. The earlier days of the internet were much worse in that regard, because people generally had more anonymity then they do now, what with the rise of social networks.

I'm just glad the guy seems to have taken the right lessons from his experience. Makes me hopeful that other kids will be able to do just fine too.

> It's easy to hate, bully, and demean someone you've never personally met.

Sure; but... this wasn't online. This was in the real, physical world, right in front of him. They stood on tables and declared it to him, even, so says the article.

You have a point there, I forgot about that part. That being said, those were other kids, and it's rare that teenagers impress me with their social behavior. I'm not entirely sure I believe what pg says in http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html, but it does offer as good an explanation as any I've heard.

I'm actually more concerned that his friends abandoned him afterwards. Kids are fairly resilient, as long as they have someone in their corner. I would imagine losing his friends over it hurt more then some random classmate telling him to kill himself.

I don't believe many people mean that literally any more than people mean for you to literally "go have intercourse with yourself" or literally "consume feces and die"

A big difference here is that those phrases are long established phrases that people have been using for a while; and even with most people I know, it's "eat feces", not "eat feces and die".

This one is much shorter an, from an outside perspective, much more pointed. I don't really see how anyone could see that demand as anything other than "go end your life [because of these reasons]"

Kids are horrible. Trust me, I used to be a kid.

> Raza, now a law-school graduate from McGill

I wonder if the person who posted the video is doing as well?

No need to be sarcastic. McGill is widely considered to be one of Canada's best universities. William Shatner and most of our prime ministers studied there.

I didn't see any sarcasm in pkulak's comment. I read it as saying, "The Star Wars kid is doing great; I wonder if the person who meanly posted the video is achieving anywhere near his level of success?"

Edit: Your comment should not be so heavily downvoted for the misunderstanding.

It is unfortunate that you can't reverse/undo a vote. I've had several time where I clicked too soon and regretted my choice after rereading and fulling understanding the comment (or when a follow up comment clarifies the first).

Heck, I've had times when I simply clicked the wrong arrow because my mouse or finger (on my phone) slipped.

It would be nice if we could at least undo downvotes if an undo for both is out of the question. I think everyone has accidentally clicked the wrong one at least once and downvote is the one that does the most damage.

Especially when using mobile. Half the time I'm lucky to click on the right comment / story link for HN.

The parent comment is suggesting that Raza is doing much better (having gone to McGill) than whoever posted the video without his consent or knowledge.

Yeah, because everyone on the Internet is sarcastic all the time.

McGill is a great school, you're right. And nobody implied otherwise.

Don't believe he was being sarcastic at all...

Considering they were both attending the same elite high school, it wouldn't be a surprise.

Thats a good point. I am sure at the time that the friend decided to post the video he didn't realize the ramifications, but its clear afterward that 'friend' turned into a sort of bully. I am sure it has significant affect on his life. Just my guess.

This is weird, there was a huge outburst of people who were supportive of him and raised money for him, yet he doesn't speak at all about that.

I remember sending money here: http://waxy.org/2003/05/finding_the_sta/

Good intentions, but getting a free iPod in the mail doesn't compensate for complete social isolation.

That's the point, there wasn't complete social isolation, this wasn't 1982, it was 2003, the Internet was in full swing, and it was very supportive of him, I'm not sure he was aware of that.

It's just a teaser for the actual article, or have you read the full one?

Also: "It was “a very dark period,” he said. “No matter how hard I tried to ignore people telling me to commit suicide, I couldn’t help but feel worthless, like my life wasn’t worth living.”" >> $4k and an iPod.

It wasn't just the money and the iPod, at the time, there was a huge outburst of support for him and of other people (nerds like myself) sharing their stories, it wasn't "It Gets Better" but it was pretty big at the time. I can't help but to think that his parents shielded him from all feedback (good and bad) and gave him a skewed perception of the event. Don't get me wrong, it was completely fucked up how local folks who he had to interact with on a regular basis invaded his privacy and taunted and teased him, but it's not as if his roommate recorded him having gay sex or as if he was raped and had the video shared while being called a slut.

I can't blame anyone for laughing at Star Wars Kid when the video first appeared, but I have to admit that my immediate reaction when I first saw it years ago was nothing but profound sadness.

All teenagers have insecurities, but nothing like the true outcasts (of which I was certainly one). We spent all our time wondering not only why we couldn't fit in, but what was wrong with us. Because there surely had to be something deeply wrong with us. Most of us assumed, deep down, that it was somehow our fault.

That video might as well have been produced by that kid's superego -- as if every self-inflicted wound of self-hatred was now confirmed. People were advising him to commit suicide, and only strength of character could have prevented him from doing it. People have killed themselves over far lesser shames, and I'm honestly not sure I would have survived it.

I'm glad he's creating a successful life for himself. And I'll admit it, though I'm not proud it: I hope the fucker who posted that video ends up pumping his gas.

One of the most interesting points made around this article was written in the comments:

> So many people watch and laugh at this vids, and they are the same people who hear Retah's story and think bullying is terrible. We don't realize how hypocrtical we can all be sometimes.

Strawman. The video is comical because it shows kids being kids. Not everyone who watches the video is mocking the subject.

I watched the video, I laughed at the video, and I think the bullying is awful. Just watching the video and finding it amusing does not turn you into a bully. Posting mean comments about the guy does. How many of us did that?

I completely agree. But how many of us vocalized support? I think the lack of support is just as bad as posting mean comments.

I don't agree. He did not want anybody to see him embarrassing himself. If you know he does not want you to see his video, but you disregard his wish and do it anyway, how can you not call yourself a bully? You disregard his wish and add yourself to the collective mass of people that caused him so much pain, and you still claim the moral high-ground?

I hope you're kidding. I found star wars kid entertaining.

I found this quite entertaining as well: http://cdn02.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/je...

I found this narration of an embarassing incident entertaining as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nliuibEp-xo

... and that's off the top of my head. In your world, does that make me a bad person?

You gave 2 examples of people who made the conscious decision of being in the spotlight. Star Wars kids did not want to be in the spotlight.

There's a spectacular crash on the highway. A barrage of thousands of onlookers makes it hard for the ambulance to reach the site. Because of that, the crashed guy dies. Are these onlookers bad people?

Not a single one is guilty for his death. They're certainly bad as a group. But of course you can't put 1000 people on trial for each being 0.1 percent guilty.

The only thing you can do is hope each single one decides for himself, whether he thinks he's bad... whether he will prioritize his interest as a curious onlooker over a victims wishes and future life path the next time a crash happens.

Wishes don't automatically get granted. The specific act of ignoring someone's wishes does not even remotely make you a bully.

People can cause bad results without being bad.

That's the worst possible lesson to take from this. I watched this video and I laughed at it. But that doesn't mean I ever thought the kid was a loser, or that I thought he deserved ridicule. Everyone does embarrassing things in their life. Everyone. It would be the height of ridiculousness to attempt to hide every embarrassing thing anyone has ever done from the world. Especially today. And it would be even sillier to attempt to prevent people from laughing at embarrassing moments.

What is more important is to encourage compassion and discourage ridicule and bullying. The difference between laughing at embarrassing moments and using such events as a basis for bullying is not at all subtle. There are light-years of difference between someone saying "this is hilarious" and someone saying "kill yourself".

Maybe, but for all of us who laughed at a silly kid then resumed our normal lives after didn't consider the aftermath that ensued in his life.

By doing nothing, we may have indirectly contributed to the bullying Raza experienced at school.

I'm not saying watching videos == cyberbullying, but the truth of the matter is, this kid had to change schools because of that video. What would happen if I or you took two seconds out of our life to write a simple comment on the video saying something like, "yo that's hilarious. keep on keeping."

He may have gotten a little mental peace that all of us who watched from miles away were simply laughing at his antics, and not him as a person. Instead, we laughed from afar and remained silent, leaving Raza by himself to face the onslaught of those who decided to be maliciously vocal.

I can't think of a worse place to seek validation than YouTube comments.

Perhaps 4chan's /b/?

lol I'll concede that YouTube comments is a pretty dumb idea. Not to mention the trolliest comments always find their way to the top anyhow.

At least there are now (as this is posted) a lot of very positive and supportive comments on this upload of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU

I'm sure people were telling him to kill himself only because they were jealous of him. People are dying for attention, and the fact this kid got it for being a nerd, hit them hard.

Honestly, I'm sure everybody would have wanted to do the same, imitate darth maul or others. He was just the first to do it.

BTW I wonder how the 2 nicely done lightsaber videos were inspired by this or not.

I'm a little surprised he didn't embrace his celebrity, seems to me like he's missed an opportunity that few get given. The video was funny but not something to be ashamed of IMO.

While I do not downplay how vicious school can be and I don't envy his situation back then, I think it definitely is an amazing opportunity to launch out into a celebrity career. He couldn't have known that in the pre-rebeccablack / pre-meme era, but it's a life lesson, don't get down on yourself, rock it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Overly Attached Girlfriend has used her celebrity status for good causes!

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-attached-girlfriend

Has anyone else noticed a recent decline in inappropriate Youtube comments now that they pushed for real name accounts?

Actually, no.

I see people posting horrendous stuff with their real names all the time on youtube. I don't think anonymity is what causes these horrible comments: it's more the fact that the internet creates a "barrier" between two people. It's easier to say something with conviction in text than it is in person, even if you're typing it under your real name.

I heard road rage explained in the same way. We would never act to each other face to face as we would in a car. The car feels like an extension of your own home and you feel more violated when someone invades what you perceive to be your space and we view what we are lashing out at as an object and not as person with feelings. I can see it being the same mentality when you are sitting at home nerdraging at your computer.

That's exactly the kind of analogy I was looking for. Thanks.

Ya. A friend of mine was driving one time and some asshat got all bent out of shape over something he did and started doing all sorts of douchbaggy things while driving. So my friend decided to discreetly follow this guy. When the guy had stopped and parked and was getting out of his car, my friend confronted him and inquired about his problem. The guy nearly crapped himself as he never expected to actually have to deal with someone he had just been a dick to on the road. Classic.

Edit: I guess I need to clarify that my friend was a perfect gentleman to the guy. Very non threatening. Not in the same road-rage way the other guy had been on the road. The situation ended very peacefully and the other guy apologized. This was not one of those "I'll throw your dog into traffic" situations. I can't imagine why confronting a bully like that would be looked down upon but I guess HN is fickle that way.

I imagine they were down-voting you because you chose to explain the story that, as far as many could tell, was a bit off-topic; and was spoken in a more 'street' way, that might be perceived as trolling.

huh... a road rage story in response to a post that talked a bit about road rage compared to cyber-bullying and safety in anonymity, etc. It sounded on topic in my head.

It was on topic.

Lots of pseudonymous forums are reasonably civil. I suspect the problem with Youtube's comments is more an absence of signal than the presence of noise. Videos are far more accessible to the barely literate, "People who watch videos on YouTube" has no community identity, and there's no external purpose to the commenting to overcome the weakness of text as a medium to discuss cat videos.

I'm not sure why Youtube even bothered allowing text comments in the first place, let alone why they didn't go to video-response only years ago.

There also seems to be an impermanence to commenting on a video, especially one that's popular, because responses (unless sufficiently up-voted) don't stick around, and there's no way to easily search through them.

So a YT comment stream takes on a party line vibe and (IMO) there's not much point taking the time to write something thoughtful.

Mainly when I have commented is on videos on niche subjects when I'm reasonably sure the video poster/artist/producer will see it.

There was a period when I was able to Have A Conversation in YouTube comments but I was never able to do it more than a few times. On the other hand, I see people having legitimate conversations on random occasions quite frequently.

I think the barrier you describe has helped lead to the phenomenon of claiming 'I was just trolling' or some variation of that comment when people are called out on inappropriate behaviour on the internet.

I'd love to see a study or data on that.

You're not watching the right videos. Anything with 1+ million viewes or videos by people with large, young fanbases will still contain such comments.

i haven't noticed, but facebook's real name policy doesn't seem to deter terrible comments.

It really depends on the video. I still see people spouting stuff straight out of Stormfront and calling people fat and blah blah but for the people with channels with following? I do see a change. I think the bigger deal is that YT finally brought up a system to deal with the troll commments by downvoting. You only really see them when you click "show anyway" now.

It probably has much more to do with the voting system they added.

I may be ignorant here - but how does exactly bullying on the Internet work? I can understand the harm of being recognized from the Internet video, but you don't have to reveal your identity on chat-rooms, forums, etc.

I imagine on a Facebook and the like, people might request a friendship and then quickly use the platform for abuse and this can render it un-usable.

But outside of that - a person is under no pressure of revealing his identity in most situations; in fact most of the internet experience is read-only and a person can choose what to view.

Is there something I'm missing? Is it ignorant to imagine that the internet would be a place for refuge for any social outcast, even internet celebrities?

I think if I were in a similar situation, it would be hard not to look at comments. Even though nothing is forcing you to read them, it's pretty difficult to fight the temptation of seeing what other people think about you.

How can we prevent this from ever happening again?

Humans are social animals. Trying to remove pecking orders in groups of humans seems impossible to me.

Not knowing a solution doesn't mean there isn't one. Rather, it means have failed at being creative enough.

Valid point. My phrasing was very short and easily misinterpreted . I'd love to be able to express it in some more positive way; this topic is something I've put a lot of thought into.

My central concern is that as technology has advanced it has been easier and easier for humans to live in larger and larger groups. As the potential for our embarrassing moments to become viral memes which spread around the world has grown so has the potential for these kind of moments to utterly destroy someone's confidence, if not life.

I do hope some kind of solution is found. I just can't see how. We're fighting against progress. Some kid making a fool of themselves in a small tribe of ~100 people is manageable. When the fool's audience suddenly becomes every internet connected person on the planet it is hard to sit everyone down and quietly explain "hey, maybe you should lay off starwars kid".

On top of that, many online systems are set up in such a way that king-maker behavior emerges. When there's billions of {videos, tweets, pics, statuses, etc} online, and both the media and these networks themselves feature 'viral' content, random uploaded bits can achieve fame (or infamy) out of nowhere.

YouTube has a lot of Internet-celebrities that started out with one random video that went viral, and now they have thousands or millions of followers. And look at photo memes - those were just random Flickr/Facebook posts that are now everywhere.

To change this effect would perhaps require changing the fundamental way people network online nowadays.

By telling kids not to make videos of themselves. (Good luck.) There are much more humiliating videos than Star Wars kid, but they never went viral. I'm just glad that in my stupid youth we only had BBSes.

this is pretty offensive. you're honestly proposing that the way to fix bullying is to teach the bullied to stop doing "stupid" things?

In the short term it's good practical advice to not make yourself a target. Maybe we'll fix bullying in 100, 200, 300 years. But that doesn't do anything to help a kid that's going to be bullied in the near future.

Even if they weren't bullied, having a billion people laughing at an embarrassing moment isn't going to be great for a teenager's self-esteem.

Much of the problem rests with the absolutely insane way that schools work. They encourage bullying and social isolation, they have become almost like prisons, and provide very little benefit in actual education in exchange.

They're microcosms of the societies they're meant to prepare us for.

And we have plenty of bullying in the adult world.

No. They're nothing like the real world. Some parts are similar, but some parts of prison are similar to the real world too.

Prisons are microcosms, too, and the way prisoners and guards interact is also a good indicator of what we do as a society.

If you fix bullying in schools, you will help fix bullying in society in general. If you fix bullying in society in general, you will help fix bullying in prisons.

I had the surprising insight a few months ago that rape culture is just the Stanford Prison Experiment writ large. It was an insight triggered by reading some commentary about Stuebenville.

I don't think this is at all a problem with schools. It's just that you can't avoid people in school as you can in the "real world".

Maybe I'm in the minority, but the first time I saw it I thought it was funny but something that I wish I had done.

It never really occurred to me that people would ridicule him for what he did.

I learned the easy way I guess, by watching what happened to him.

Most of the horrible individuals who bullied this kid in person or via the web will likely be serving his coffee and pumping his gas. I think we can all agree it was a funny video but laughing with someone vs at them and telling them to "kill themselves" are two entirely different things. I wish him all the best in his future and hopefully as a lawyer he can undertake some bullying cases.

Serving coffee is an honorable vocation, and should not be used as a punishment metaphor.

Odd that you would leave pumping gas out of your comment.

Pumping gas as a job is such an anachronistic concept to me that it didn't really register.

It isn't a punishment, it is a lower paying job. No opinion here just raw data.

Likely? How does posting a video of a college or friend being silly make it more likely you will have a low paying job?

I wasn't referring to the people posting, rather the people that bullied after it was posted.

Damn. What the hell is wrong with people? "Go kill yourself." Are you kidding me??? I thought he had to be one of the funnest/funniest people in the world after the video. I'd honestly thought he'd take advantage of the celebrity status and use it to his advantage. . . . . but idiotic bullies/kids/highschoolers will be idiotic bullies/kids/highschoolers.

This is what I thought as well. I would have thought he could have leveraged it and brought some good out of it, but that sort of thing probably didn't occur to him or his parents at the time. It would have been very difficult to look for the roses amongst the thorns back then.

EDIT: reading the article intro, and the fact that he is now a law school graduate, I can't help thinking if perhaps this is step 1 in starting to leverage his worldwide fame. A law firm specialising in prosecuting bullying behavior in workplaces, or something similar? I hope it is the case and he manages to leverage the laughter into real success.

It's amazing how much of an impact the internet can have on people's lives, even in the days before YouTube or Facebook.

> Almost a billion viewers across the planet know him as the Star Wars Kid

Yeah.. I don't think so.

It's been 10 years?!

I so totally admire Raza. He is a survivor and a hero. But somehow it doesn't feel like justice has been served yet. And telling anyone to "kill themselves" should be considered assault and a criminal offence.

Can't wait to read the article.

Really surprised to hear such a scary thought as being arrested for something you say from someone who monikers themselves "thoughtcriminal".

Actually, the moniker fits perfectly thanks.

Is it really that scary? There are quite a few countries in which insults, hate speech etc. are crimes that can even get you into prison.

Yup. Straight up hate speech. Which is a form of assault.

Hate speech is more than insulting someone. It's advocating physical harm.

Sweet god I hope you're trolling. These people don't mean it, they don't hate him, hate speech is based on discrimination and completely unrelated to this issue, hate speech is not assault, nobody wanted him physically harmed... excuse me I need a minute.

My bad. They were just joking with Raza. Now I get it. Ha ha, very funny. LOL

Time to ban the Internet?

The video is hilarious. That's a fact.

He needed to have a sense of humor about himself, and it would take the sting of the attacks away. As long as you try to fight it and hold on to the belief that people are wrong to laugh at your hilarious video, then you're going to lose. Because you're wrong.

He chose to record himself acting like a jackass and then left the video laying around. Yeah, a lot of dickheads acted like dickheads in response. But that's going to happen in life. Rather than getting bent out of shape because some random stranger told you to kill yourself, take it for what it is; someone displacing their own self hatred on an easy target.

I was hoping this article would have him saying something like:

"On reflection, honestly, the video is hilarious. I can laugh at it now. It was embarrassing at the time, but I am glad people got joy out of it."

Oh well. Hopefully one day he'll grow as a person and find some self respect within himself rather than blaming others for his own lack of self esteem.

Did you read the part where he lost whatever friends he had?

Not exactly something that would help you in life. I feel bad for the fella. Yes the video is hilarious, but he didn't "have it coming".

Public embarrassment is not exactly something you dismiss that casually.

He was a teenager. Have a heart.

lol wow what a stupid comment.

Go kill yourself you worthless cunt.

I accidentally upvoted this comment and cannot see a way to undo it.

I was with you till you described him as "acting like a jackass" and started being judgemental.

Downvoted.

When I originally read about how much trouble it caused him, I was shocked at how bad the abuse was. I had seen the video and thought it was in more or less good fun -- it was cute. I, however, was an adult looking at this thing in a completely different social context than the kid in the video. Perhaps you, too, forget, or were never exposed to, the type of mob mentality that runs rampant through school-age kids forced into a structured institutional environment for 10+ hours a day. Random people on the internet got a laugh out of it. His schoolmates, on the other hand, used it as a source of cruel torment. Laughing it off generally does no good with school kids, unless you are already extremely popular. And if something like your weight makes you stand out, it's 1000x worse. There is almost certainly no better way he could have handled the situation - he was lucky that changing schools was enough to (apparently) stem the flow. It was a serious situation that was way out of control, not a matter of a few of your buddies giving your a hard time for doing something stupid.

Do you think that perhaps the humiliation, shame, and complete social rejection by friends, peers, and strangers alike could make you lose your sense of humor about a stupid video you recorded when you were 14?

When a teenager who is barely out of adolescence and is already picked on for his weight and nerdy interests gets hit by something like this it's basically a hydrogen bomb on whatever meager social acceptance he had accumulated up to that point.

In other words, give the guy a break.

I hope that one day you too will grow as a person, and regret that.

Luckily for you, all you did was post words semi-anonymously, not a video that identifies you to your friends, peers and colleagues. You are unlikely to ever be held to account, congratulated or hated, personally, day to day, for your words.

More over, today we know a lot more about the consequences of these things. They had no idea back then. Its wrong to apply today's standards tot he past.

If all 15 year olds were possessed of the monumental maturity, courage, and self-assurance necessary to exist in a world they cannot escape that treats them with contempt and hatred 5 days a week and merely let it roll off like water off a duck's back the world would be a very, very different place.

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