What Star Wars Kid could have done differently.

The Numa Numa Guy and Star Wars Kid have a lot in common. They are both younger males, they did something semi-embarrassing on video, and got tremendous exposure for doing something relatively innocuous. The primary difference was their responses to the exposure. Star Wars Kid had his parents go all out to stop the exposure and punish the teenagers that put out the video that got them into trouble. The meme caught on fire but has now largely fizzled out, leaving the Star Wars Kid the very vision of an "angry nerd" and all that remains of his legacy are some creatively edited versions of his original video and a community disappointed with his reaction.

The Numa Numa Guy took a different approach. I can't imagine he dreamed he would have this kind of success with that relatively innocuous video. But instead of panicking and trying to censor every outlet for the wide-spread video, he embraced it and encouraged the community. He created a whole community, got a band to reproduce the video, and has a contest for the next video he sees fit to be the next "Numa Numa Guy" at newnuma.com.

The differences in their success and overall happiness are staggering. Gary Brolsma did the internet equivalent of winning the lottery--becoming a web-celeb.

Perhaps I can win "the internet lottery" with one of my videos. No?