Have you ever wondered what happened to Ghyslain Raza, the unwitting star of the following video showing him swinging a golf ball retriever around as a weapon, which was filmed at his high school studio on a tape left in a basement, discovered by classmates and distributed online where it became a viral meme (it has been seen over 1 billion times)?
Last we heard, poor Ghyslain was so ridiculed for his activities in the video that he slipped into depression and had to take time off from school to seek psychiatric care, prompting his family to sue the families of the classmates who leaked the video for $250,000.
Well, I’m glad to report Ghyslain has been doing a lot better since then.
Today, Canadian law student Ghyslain Raza is President of a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the heritage, culture and history of a riverside French-Canadian town called Trois-Rivières. But before that, the world knew him by a different title: The “Star Wars Kid.”
Raza is now a law student at Montreal’s McGill University. In February of this year, he took control of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivières (formerly called the Society (society) for Conservation and Promotion of Cultural Heritage), which was founded more than 30 years ago. Raza is trying to revitalize the organization by reaching out to academics, releasing new publications and working with the city to make sure that developments in the area keep heritage concerns in mind.
May the force be with you, Star Wars kid. Always.