13 Years Later, STAR WARS Kid is a Lawyer Trying to Battle Cyberbullies

In 2003, Ghyslian Raza, a Canadian teenager, went down in Internet history. Once a kid who enjoyed making videos, a group of classmates uploaded a video of Raza imitating a Jedi Knight without him knowing, and the rest was history. Macleans writes that the video reached over 10 million views in a pre-YouTube era, which made it one of the web's first viral videos. It would later go down as one of the first recorded acts of "cyberbullying."

13 years after the incident, Raza spoke to the outlet about how the incident affected his life. He talked about how he lost all friends that he had, was teased unmercifully, and was told to commit suicide:

“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.”

Raza overcame that and is now a lawyer who wants to speak out about the need for support in cyberbullying. For those who may suffer from unwanted Internet fame, he has some words for you:

"You’ll survive. You’ll get through it...and you’re not alone. You are surrounded by people who love you."

It's always hard to remember that person on the other side of the Internet is a person. Cheers to Ghyslain Raza for speaking out about his trauma.