Reconsidering 'Star Wars kid,' the early internet's meanest moment

In Tales of the Early Internet, Mashable explores online life through 2007 — back before social media and the smartphone changed everything.

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Had it happened in later years, there's a good chance Ghyslain Raza would never have become Star Wars kid. 

If like today's ninth-graders, Raza had owned a smartphone, he could have put it on a tripod, recorded himself practicing Darth Maul-style lightsaber moves with a golf ball retriever, and kept the resulting video to himself. In 2020, Raza might even have chosen to post the best take as a Snap — felt like a Jedi, might delete later. In a world filled with bizarre amateur videos, where the extremely online are proudly weird and "geek" is no longer a slur, it probably would have sunk without trace.  Read more...

More about Star Wars, Early Internet, Culture, and Web Culture

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