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Owen Benjamin Smith a.k.a. Owen Benjamin, a.k.a. Big Bear (1980–), is a conservative an alt-right internet personality, actor, pseudoscience promoter, racist "comedian" and straight-up Neo-Nazi. A one-time standup and actor in hack (but mainstream) comedy movies, he's since descended into insane wingnuttery and built a cult of internet followers known as "bears" through his (now-terminated) YouTube channel.

Benjamin reaches thousands a day on his live streams and was featured in several PragerU videos.[1][2][3] He has a lifetime ban from Infowars as Alex Jones considers him to be far too antisemitic. He was disinvited from Tommy Robinson's event in the United Kingdom for his extremist anti-Jewish views. He also used to be buddy-buddy with Steven Crowder, until he fucked that up too. On December 4, 2019, Benjamin's YouTube channel was terminated for trying to circumvent the TOS.[4]

Before the fall [ edit ]

Before outing himself as a bigot and general wingnut of questionable mental stability, Benjamin was a rising comedy star thanks to his association with Adam Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions. While touring the stand-up circuit, Benjamin appeared in several Happy Madison films including The House Bunny, Jack & Jill, and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star. The latter starred Christina Ricci, his one-time fiance. Benjamin has claimed around this time that he filmed a television pilot with Ricci that was not picked up. He also had a starring role in a TBS sitcom, Sullivan & Son, and hosted several variety and light entertainment shows.

The troubles [ edit ]

Benjamin's troubles began in the mid-2010s, when he started appearing on Steven Crowder's YouTube channel while his content etched closer and closer into far-right and conspiratorial territory. It didn't help that Benjamin was (allegedly) quite volatile and prone to arguments, which when combined with his increasingly-fringe politics led his former colleagues to distance themselves from him, while he became a bit of a darling of the "anti-PC" right.

According to an article by Bethany Mendel in Cleveland Jewish News, Benjamin's descent really started in October 2017, when the University of Connecticut Student Union Board of Governors canceled Benjamin’s comedy show after he tweeted an objection to hormone replacement therapy for children identifying as transgender. Just a few weeks earlier and for the same reason, Benjamin’s talent agency him, forcing him to start representing himself. Not to be deterred by this setback, Benjamin doubled down on pushing the free speech envelope, which made a him enough of a mainstream conservative figure to appear in two PragerU videos and on Daily Wire podcasts. It was around this time he was caught using racial slurs during a self-booked comedy show, which led to his YouTube channel becoming demonetized.

Throughout 2018, his personality slowly began to unravel in between intermittent appearances on Louder with Crowder and Joe Rogan's podcast. He appeared on the Infowars for the first time that September, and soon after moved to rural Washington and began posting long rants online which usually descended into conspiracy theories and blatant antisemitism.

Views [ edit ]

Benjamin is a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan,[5][6][7] and it goes without saying he is fully a hardcore antisemite.[8][9] According to Benjamin, Hitler wasn't evil and didn't hate the Jews. Hitler just wanted clean Germany of its filth and parasites,[10] and the Jews just happened to die from working. After all, "Zyklon B was only used as a delousing agent" (a PRATT, okay?). Hitler was also censored and thrown to jail for writing Mein Kampf, which was impossible because Hitler wrote Mein Kampf during his time in jail. To further his point, he believes Jews and their love for censorship were responsible for the Pittsburgh killing. He's okay with banning people who tell him to stop ranting about Jews, though.[11] He believes Albert Einstein was "fucking retarded" and a total idiot who wanted to say everything was "relative" as "half of what he says makes no fucking sense".[12] Half of people believe Einstein just because he had crazy hair and was Jewish.

Benjamin regurgitated tropes used in the Christchurch terrorist attacks less than a week before the event. He later went on to say he was upset that Trump condemned the attack but hinted that it was the Jews that were actually responsible for it.[13] You can't support the attacks in one breath and condemn the attacks (by pinning them on the Jews) in the same breath, Benjamin. In a similar incoherent vein, he thinks that Jews financed the Holocaust while simultaneously not believing that the Holocaust happened, that only 20,000, at most, died.

Benjamin loves his children and forbids them from the internet in case they stumble across porn (especially gay porn). Porn is Jewish, you see, and it's a calm and calculated plan to subvert white Christians. The UFC is a Jewish subversion plot to push homosexuality and normalize gay porn. His children are not allowed to go to public school, which sounds great for the kids, but not so much for their education and well-being as he has them attend creationist homeschooling instead. Public school has internet access too, oh my!

Atheism wasn't a thing until the Jews ruined everything and promoted it. Yeah, we kind of gave up on making sense of his views.

Pseudoscience [ edit ]

Benjamin has described science as "faith-based", "evangelical", and "nothing to do with facts", comparing it to a hydra.[14] "Scientists", for example, with the authority of priests, believe that a 2 year old can choose a gender (according to what he saw on a Bill Nye Saves the World episode). The valiant Benjamin identifies the "heart" of that hydra being the moon landing. Somehow. Humans have never been to the Moon, and NASA is a tax scam.[1] He also considers himself Christian and reinforces this by telling us that the Big Bang isn't a thing and Earth isn't all that old. Evolution is part of the mass lie by scientists.

He has bought into the CDC whistleblower controversy after having watched Vaxxed, an anti-vaxxer propaganda film.[15]

He believes that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax to make money, and thinks AIDS is a hoax and Magic Johnson never had HIV in the first place.

He denies the existence of acid rain.

And, just like any Holocaust denier, he believes the Earth is flat[16]

Gun nuttery [ edit ]

Benjamin believes that the Second Amendment has been totally whittled down and is way over regulated. He also has "AR-15s in every room" in his house, with no gun safe, and two young children in the home. Creepily, after the Parkland shooting, Benjamin tweeted three taunts to David Hogg, a teenage survivor-turned activist, about Hogg's lack of pubic hair[17] and talked about how "gay" college is. Shortly after Benjamin had his Twitter account suspended, was banned from live-streaming in YouTube,[18] and wrung his hands about the injustice of not being able to talk about the genital hair of teenagers.

Other disturbing views [ edit ]

In addition to blatant bigotry, Benjamin promotes many pseudoscientific and unscientific views.

Verbally lambasts his followers if they get once inch out of line with his edicts in the chat. He bans even subscription holders "for life" if they irritate him at all for any reason and this is easy to do. Then like an abusive husband to a beaten wife, the wife bear is allowed to come back after a humiliation ritual where they admit fault for everything in a public way.

General wingnuttery [ edit ]

Conspiracy theories [ edit ]

Racism [ edit ]

Believes in the "white genocide" conspiracy theory.

Frequently uses racial slurs as "nigger", "kink", "spic", "gook", and more.

Sexism [ edit ]

Believes women should not be allowed to vote unless they are married to a land owner.

Homophobia and transphobia [ edit ]

He is a hardcore homophobe and believes gays should not be allowed to hold positions or have political power. [20]

Hates "sodomites" and gay people. Admits he is homophobic.

Believes gay people should not be allowed to hold public office.

Dislikes Richard Spencer only because Spencer is too cool with gays.

Thinks Joe Rogan is a literal homosexual who goes to Vegas to have gay sex.

He won't speak to his father for over three years because his dad asked him to please stop tweeting out homophobic things because he wanted Owen to focus on his career. In return, his father is not allowed to meet his grandchildren and Owen constantly calls him gay and more.

Claims that trans children do not exist, and claims children transitioning is child abuse.[21]

Islamophobia [ edit ]

Believes that Muslims fuck goats.

Believes Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office.

Other views on religion [ edit ]

Believes Christianity is the only acceptable world view and that anything else denies "logos" and cannot work.

Believes that the Pope is not Christian.

Judaism is a new religion.

Abortion [ edit ]

No exceptions whatsoever for abortion. Life begins at conception.

Supports the Alabama abortion bill of 2019.

Thinks stoning may be appropriate for women who get an abortion.

IQ [ edit ]

He is smarter than every Professor at Oxford, and has an IQ better than 1 in 10,000.

Frequently refers to the claim that he has an IQ of 147.

Democrats and liberals are evil and Republicans are much smarter.

The Eric Nimmer and Stolen Valour Controversy [ edit ]

Benjamin's long time comedy show opener was an unknown comedian Eric Nimmer. Nimmer was often bragged about being a Marine, who claimed to have over 20 confirmed kills as a sniper. As well as claiming to have completed law school, seminary school and more. it was later revealed through a FOIA request that Nimmer was not a Marine. Benjamin was forced to respond after months of defending Nimmer and ignoring the obvious proof that he was lying. Benjamin claims to have given Nimmer thousands of dollars for his "brain cancer" that also never existed, but later claimed he has not spoken to Nimmer since he found out, and that if Nimmer "kills" himself, that it is not his fault (Benjamin notes he bought Nimmer an AR-15 as a gift).