TikTok often brings us the very best and worst of humanity, and the social network has delivered a real doozy once more.
Fledgeling standup and content creator Madi Hart only has around 70k followers, but a post of hers recently blew up and received over 7 million views thanks to an absolutely wild story she told.
Hart, who until now was most famous for a pretty funny post about the “feminism leaving” her body when a male date offered to pay for everything (that naturally led to her being criticized by the terminally online), was responding to a prompt about “funny trauma.” She went on to describe her deadbeat father Ben, who had left her family to pursue a career in breakdancing.
The post wasn’t overly detailed, but did show a pretty depressing screenshot of a message from her dad after he’d forgotten her birthday, the format of which will be familiar to countless kids with deadbeat parents around the world. She also mentioned that he didn’t pay for her medical bills after he’d gone off in pursuit of his “dream,” despite his being incredibly wealthy.
As this is America, he was also featured on a number of prominent daytime chat shows, like Good Morning America, clips of which we got a glimpse of in the post. It’s not quite Oprah bigging up a mass rapist, but his success despite his relative lack of talent is pretty indicative of how easy it is to be a terrible person and be backed by the entertainment establishment in the U.S.
Ever the attention seeker, after Madi’s post went viral, her father responded with his own painfully long video, trying to refute the accusations. However, it might have been better for him had he just let it slide, as everything the internet has learned about him since has only turned him into a bigger figure of hate.
If you watched Hart’s video and want to learn more, then check out our overview of what happened, and why her dad is so much worse than we could have all imagined.
What did Madi Hart say?
In her post, Madi accused her father Ben of abandoning their family when she was a child in order to become a professional breakdancer. He took on the name Bennihana, and went on to become the oldest competing breakdancer in the world. While that might sound impressive, competing doesn’t really mean much. After all, if you’re wealthy enough you can compete in most sports (just ask Olympian Elizabeth Swaney).
Madi pointed out that this led to her feeling abandoned, and mentioned that he had also stopped supporting his family financially. It was all done with humor, but as she later confirmed, they are no longer in contact. All in all, it was a funny tale that could have been left in the past, but Bennihana couldn’t let his pride be hurt.
Who is Ben Hart?
At the risk of sounding like a Reddit commenter extrapolating someone’s personality from a post on r/AITA, Ben Hart seems like every negative stereotype of a middle aged conservative white man you could hope for. Selfish, born into extreme privilege, and constantly in victim mode, he responded to his daughter’s video with a near unwatchable 10-minute borefest that involved him reading a scripted response with the cadence of an untrained AI model. He was also wearing a bitcoin tracksuit, which gives an even clearer insight into the online cultural milieu in which he is living.
None of this should be surprising, as it seems Hart has been a terrible person for a while now. He founded the ultra conservative Dartmouth Review while attending the college, and the publication became famous for opposing affirmative action policies, publishing racist essays, and encouraging others to commit violence in the name of apartheid. And that’s not mentioning the time he put a Black professor in a violent headlock that led to the teacher having to bite him in self defense.
It’s not hard to imagine that an attention seeking bigot like Hart would have no qualms about abandoning his family and utilizing his financial means to engage in an embarrassing midlife crisis. He even told the Washington Post: “I think constant self-evaluation and self-psychoanalysis is kind of damaging — and really inhibiting,” which is pretty illuminating.
His response video was just as lacking self awareness as one would expect, given his history. Most of the content was him going over the divorce settlement between him and his former wife in an attempt to fight back against accusations of financial negligence, but there was also a total lack of acknowledgement about the shameful birthday text that was shown in his daughter’s original video. He also claimed to have lived near his family in the years following his divorce, and that he didn’t abandon them.
We also were forced to watch more of his breakdancing in this clip. Despite his long-standing racism and support for conservative causes, nobody has asked Hart his feelings on the influence of Black culture on his new favored activity, and we doubt he’s thought too much about it.
If more proof was needed of what kind of person Ben Hart is, he was also called “awesome” by Elon Musk, which is the entitled moron equivalent of being called a “stoner” by Snoop Dogg.
So, did Ben Hart abandon his family to become a breakdancer?
Despite the older Hart’s claims, the evidence does point to one very real fact: He abandoned his family to follow a pipe dream of being a professional breakdancer. Much like wealthy nepo babies who can make terrible art despite a lack of talent, he has the funds to make an impact on the dancing world, and we shouldn’t mistake his competing with actual ability.
Many people with Ben’s background will often truly believe they’ve done nothing wrong, even when presented with direct evidence, so it’s not shocking to see him attempt to deny his daughter’s accusations.
Then again, given that father and daughter are public figures, it wouldn’t be surprising that this was manufactured between the pair for engagement. For now, though, it seems safe to say that the Elon Musk loving wannabe breakdancer is also following in the South African’s footsteps by being a terrible dad.