The 'Star Wars Kid' is getting some serious cash. Geeks all across the net have contributed to a fund to get him an iPod and gift certificate for being humilated by friends. I am torn on this one. By watching and laughing (Admittedly hard not to do.), you're making fun of the kid. But then, you could be laughing at yourself, knowing that could easily be you.
His "friends" posted the original video as a joke to make fun of him. Then someone takes it and edits it with a Star Wars theme. Even more to laugh at.
But, as Wired quotes Kevin (via a comment on Waxy.org),
"I just hope that Ghyslain knows that a lot of us laughed at the video because we were just like him in high school, and we turned out okay and now can laugh at ourselves."It's very easy to say that now, but the kid has got to be feeling really poor at the hype over this. In the NYT,
"As nice as it might be to get an iPod, he said, he would have preferred that the video, which he had not intended anyone to see, had remained private. 'People were laughing at me,' he wrote in a follow-up e-mail message. 'And it was not funny at all.'"So the kid's fellings are hurt, and will $1200+ make it all go away? No, but time will. As with every fad on the Internet, there's a short lifespan. I am sure his wounds are deep, but hopefully, with time, he will laugh at this, like we all are now, in the future.