I used to be suspicious. However I think by NOW one of the tabloids would have picked up on someone who knew the 'real' ben and exposed him. I'm not 110% sure he is legit, but I am pretty sure now.
I would half believe this if he hadn't been a flight attendant though. You have to go through some pretty serious training to get a job like that, and Ben has hardly shown any of those traits whilst in the house.
As someone on the BB Facebook posted the other day, a flight attendant needs to have, first and foremost, leadership and strength qualities, in addition to his already welcoming personality. If there's an emergency on board, a flight attendant should be able to take charge, remain calm and confidently have the ability to keep others at rest whilst executing an evacuation plan or whatever. When has Ben shown that he can "think for himself" in decision making circumstances so far?
Regardless of whether you're a fan or not, I do think Ben is acting dumber whilst in the house than he really is. He is yet to show us any kind of leadership skills nor prove that is capable of making decisions or that he can think for himself - at least not externally. There have been several discrepancies in his persona during his time on BB so far that, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I've noticed. He slightly changes how he talks and acts when speaking to different HM's (such as Drew and Tim), and also when he is in the Diary Room. For somebody who has shown that he can be quite modest most of the time, he somehow suddenly cranks out this false modesty and confidence as soon as he knows he's live on TV (although similar to other HM's in that sense) but also during his "save me" speeches and, on occasion, in his day-to-day Diary Room entries. We see flickers of various Ben's at different points in the show and it doesn't add up to me.
With this in mind, I'm starting to observe a lot of similarities between him and how Tim "played the game" back in 2005. Obviously it's a completely different circumstance and it's something that was obviously totally unknown back in '05, but Tim did an AMAZING job at what he did. I see reflections of this in (this year's) Tim's way of playing Big Brother too. Since (BB05's) Tim revealed his game playing "tactics", I've realised that, in all honesty, it's not that hard to put this gameplay into effect if you really wanted to achieve it. Read more about it here:
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib101055/179brunerot.pdf
In tonight's episode when Ben "interrupted" Tully and Drew twice, all I kept thinking of was what Tim mentions in that above article about trying to get "involved in at least some of the sub-plots the producers use to keep the whole thing running". Combine that with a few one-liners and you've got yourself further affection by the general public alongside the whole persona he's got going on.
I dunno. There's just something inconsistent about Ben that confuses me.
Look, in the beginning, I was just a bit iffy, especially with his cooky intro video, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But as the days go on, I am starting to become more and more convinced that Ben is not all he seems - and I will stand by that, whether I'm alone on this theory or not. Just my analysis. Just my opinion.