Alexander D. Hall (born August 13, 1990) is an American writer, showrunner,

horror fiction Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. ...

novelist, and

documentarian A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in ter ...

. He is known for creating and producing the web series '' Ben Drowned (2010-2020)'' and showrunning the subsequent

alternate reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by inten ...

. He was the host of the podcast ''The Digital Fireside'' and created several documentaries.

Biography

Hall was born in

Carmel, Indiana Carmel is a suburban city in Indiana immediately north of Indianapolis. With a population of 100,777, the city spans across Clay Township in Hamilton County, Indiana, and is bordered by the White River to the east; the Hamilton-Boone county ...

and began his career in the creative arts in 2008. He attended

Saint Louis University Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...

until 2011. In 2010 Hall wrote Ben Drowned - a story about an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

named BEN that haunts a Nintendo 64 video game cartridge. ''Ben Drowned'' would go on to receive widespread critical acclaim and have a readership in the millions. The story became an example of a modern urban legend and a major influence in helping to legitimize

creepypasta Creepypastas are horror-related legends that have been shared around the Internet. Creepypasta has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal ...

as a literary genre and created many of the recognizable tropes that are now seen today in modern internet horror stories. Hall later revealed that he had written another creepy-pasta under a

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

in an interview. There were attempts to adapt ''Ben Drowned'' into a

Clive Barker Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the ''Books of Blood'', which established him as a leading h ...

and

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...

series. Hall created a series of Gonzo style documentaries and hosted a podcast interviewing Americans from eclectic walks of life. The most notable documentary piece from this time was covering a

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

-trained scientist purporting that

N,N-Dimethyltryptamine ''N'',''N''-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT or ''N'',''N''-DMT, SPL026) is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including human beings, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine. It is used as a ...

cured his brain cancer. In 2020 Hall created a sequel to ''Ben Drowned'' utilizing

OpenAI OpenAI is an artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. The company conducts research in the field of AI with the stated goal of promo ...

to generate art and music assets for the story. Hall expressed enthusiasm for this emerging technology, citing that they could expand the possibilities available to independent creators, but urged caution that these tools could quickly render many artists/creators obsolete.

Works

* ''Normal'' (2008) Creator, Writer, Producer * Ben Drowned (2010-2020) Creator, Writer, Producer * ''The Digital Fireside'' (2019-2020)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Alex 1990 births Living people People from Indianapolis People from Carmel, Indiana 21st-century American writers American writers of young adult literature Writers from Indiana 21st-century American novelists