Paris Hilton hardcore? Nope. Pamela Anderson hardcore? Nope. Screech? Nope How about a STAR WARS KID!!!
‘Star Wars’ Kid named most-seen clip on Net
OLIVER MOORE, from Globe and Mail
The video clip of a Canadian known around the world as the "Star Wars Kid" has become the most-shared footage on the Internet, a British net-tracking firm has determined.
The once-private tape of Ghyslain Raza faking a light-sabre fight, using a golf-ball retriever in place of the traditional Jedi weapon, has been seen online by about 900 million people.
That’s more than twice the total of Paris Hilton’s sex tape.
Mr. Raza, who grunts and grimaces as he reels theatrically in front of the camera, said that the video was not meant to be made public. He had filmed it late in 2002 in a studio at his Trois-Rivières school and then accidentally left the tape behind. Another youth found it the following spring and shared it with friends.
The footage was eventually encoded as a Windows Media (.wmv) file and spread using a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. It grew ever more popular, with nearly 180,000 people signing an online petition that unsuccessfully called for Mr. Raza to have a cameo in the third episode of the modern Star Wars franchise.
Mr. Raza said the publicity caused endless humiliation and he sued for $250,000. An unspecified settlement was reached this spring, though it appears to have done nothing to slow the spread of the video. According to numbers from the Viral Factory, a British firm, it has been seen by nearly one of every seven people on Earth.
A couple of hundred million views behind Mr. Raza was a more recent performance by Gary Brolsma.
Also an unknown teen before the spread of his video, the 19-year-old is now known as "Numa Numa" and his lip-synch of a Romanian pop hit has been seen by 700 million people.
Trailing in third place was 1 Night in Paris, the infamous sex tape of Ms. Hilton and her then-boyfriend that has been seen online by 400 million.
Next came the saucy advertisement filmed by pop star Kylie Minogue for the British lingerie company Agent Provocateur, the choice of 360 million.
Other popular video clips included the dynamiting of a dead whale and a salmon commercial depicting a man fist-fighting a large bear.