science

Owen Benjamin

Owen Benjamin is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Owen Benjamin rather than just read about it. In short: Owen Smith (born May 24, 1980) known professionally as Owen Benjamin, is an American conspiracy theorist and internet personality known for promoting white supremacy, anti-Black racism, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. According to the Anti-Defamation League, he has endorsed Nazi policies concerning Jews and has denied the Holocaust, and his content is known for being antisemitic.

Key takeaways

Owen Benjamin belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Owen Benjamin to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Owen Benjamin from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Owen Smith (born May 24, 1980) known professionally as Owen Benjamin, is an American conspiracy theorist and internet personality known for promoting white supremacy, anti-Black racism, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. According to the Anti-Defamation League, he has endorsed Nazi policies concerning Jews and has denied the Holocaust, and his content is known for being antisemitic. Benjamin was originally known as a stand-up comedian and actor. He had roles in mainstream film and television between 2008 and 2015. In the late 2010s, Benjamin began expressing more extreme political views. In 2019, he was banned from several mainstream social media platforms for violations of their policies, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. These included antisemitic, homophobic, and racist remarks.

Early life Owen Smith was born to John Kares Smith and Jean Troy-Smith, both professors at Oswego State University. He attended SUNY Plattsburgh, where he worked at the student-run TV station.

Career

Acting and stand-up comedy (2004–2018) Benjamin starred in several web-only video series, including in the role of Owen on C-SPOT's 2008 Gaytown and the role of Chance Stevens on CBS Interactive's 2009 Heckle U. He also hosted Owen Benjamin Presents, a 2008 C-SPOT production. In 2008, Benjamin had a supporting role in the comedy film The House Bunny. In 2009, he played the lead role in the romantic comedy film All's Faire in Love, co-starring with Christina Ricci. From 2012 to 2014, he portrayed Owen Walsh on the TBS original sitcom Sullivan & Son. He also appeared on the MTV show Punk'd and twice as a correspondent on The Jay Leno Show. Benjamin hosted the annual ADG Excellence in Production Design Awards from 2014 to 2016. He hosted Esquire Network's The Next Great Burger in 2015. Towards the end of the decade, Benjamin had established himself as what conservative commentator Bethany Mandel described as an "up-and-coming conservative comedian", booking comedy shows at university campuses. He hosted a podcast called Why Didn't They Laugh on Sideshow Network. In October 2017, Benjamin tweeted his opposition to providing children who claimed to be transgender with hormone therapy, criticizing NPR host Jesse Thorn for raising his 5-year-old child as transgender. This led the University of Connecticut to cancel an upcoming show, and Benjamin's talent agency dropped him as a client. In February 2018, Benjamin used a racial slur onstage in a performance in his hometown of Saranac Lake, New York, and more venues cancelled appearances. Mandel described these two events as the "beginning of the end of Benjamin's mainstream career".

Political commentary (2018–present) Beginning in 2018, Benjamin appeared in two videos for conservative media company PragerU. Since then, Benjamin repeated antisemitic conspiracy tropes, referred to gay sex as "degeneracy", and called Barack Obama a "nigger". He also was a guest on several shows by The Daily Wire, and podcasts including those of Joe Rogan and Steven Crowder. In September 2018, he appeared on InfoWars show, and in December was a guest on a show by Vox Day.

Views Benjamin is part of the alt-right and has espoused views rooted in white nationalism that are racist and antisemitic. Bethany Mandel has said that Benjamin, who was once a mainstream conservative comedian, became increasingly radicalized towards the end of the 2010s. Benjamin has expressed support for various antisemitic conspiracy theories. In October 2018, The Atlantic reported that Benjamin had a history of posting antisemitic memes on Instagram. In 2019, Right Wing Watch reported on Benjamin's statement that Adolf Hitler was trying to "clean Germany, clean it of the parasites, of the fleas", and his claims that Jews control the media. Right Wing Watch also reported on one of Benjamin's livestreams, where he said, "gays and Jews were considered the worst of the worst. Why? Because if they get power, they will destroy your entire civilization." Mandel has said that Benjamin has posted fabricated writing from the Talmud and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denial. Right Wing Watch has reported that Benjamin believes in several other conspiracy theories, such as that the transgender rights movement is part of a eugenics program to reduce the world population, that the Moon landing did not occur, and that the existence of dinosaurs was fabricated by the Smithsonian. In November 2019, he spoke at the Flat Earth International Conference in Dallas, Texas. In July 2023, he claimed that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as test footage of the bombs, were faked.

Social media bans Twitter banned Benjamin in 2018 after he made tweets about gun control advocate David Hogg. His account was later reinstated under the X management. In October 2019, Patreon suspended Benjamin's account, saying he violated their terms of service regarding hate speech. His YouTube channel was banned on December 3, 2019, for violations of the site's terms of service. On December 13, he was suspended from Facebook and Instagram for multiple policy violations. He has also been banned by PayPal. In January 2020, Benjamin and one hundred of his fans announced their intent to sue Patreon for $3.5 million for banning him from the platform. Patreon counter-sued 72 of the fans. In July 2020, a judge on the San Francisco County Superior Court denied Patreon's request for a preliminary injunction in the case. In March 2020, The Daily Dot reported that Benjamin had been attempting to circumvent his social media bans on several platforms to spread disinformation regarding COVID-19. Following the publication of the article, several of Benjamin's new accounts were terminated. After being banned from YouTube, Benjamin began streaming on DLive, a livestreaming service popular with extremists. In October 2020, Benjamin and Nick Fuentes were the two highest earners on the site. Following a November 2020 report by extremism researcher Megan Squire, DLive suspended several accounts including those belonging to Benjamin and Fuentes.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Owen Benjamin

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Owen Benjamin claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Owen Benjamin before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Owen Benjamin ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Owen Benjamin

In research: Owen Benjamin appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Owen Benjamin in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Owen Benjamin is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American comedians, 21st-century American male actors, American Holocaust deniers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Owen Benjamin outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Owen Benjamin in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Owen Benjamin means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Owen Benjamin out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Owen Benjamin in simple terms?

Why does Owen Benjamin matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Owen Benjamin?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Owen Benjamin.