State of the Blog: 100th Post

This is the 100th post on Gold Skulltulla, and by the time this is live the blog will have racked up more than 20,000 pageviews in its nearly 6-year lifespan.  It's a nice little milestone, and the perfect opportunity to take a minute to reflect on how far the blog has come and where it needs to go.  Gold Skulltulla has always been personal in nature, serving as a platform for me to build a public portfolio of video game and music criticism, share DJ mixes, and promote my own art events.

If you go back to the earliest posts, this blog only existed to write best-of music lists once a year among a circle of friends who did the same.  I plucked the name "Gold Skulltulla" out of the air because it sounded cool.  If you play video games you'll pick up on the allusion to Gold Skulltulas, small spider-like collectable/enemies from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but it was never really important to understand that.  "Skulltula" is meant to be a play on "tarantula," but since I (mis)pronounced it "tull" like "Jethro Tull" I went with that spelling.  Also, by Gnarls Barkley naming logic, I thought it would avoid the copyright police in case things "got huge."  Once I began to compose DJ mixes, I figured I'd use the title for that moniker too.  Brand synergy and all that.

The music lists and mixes continued on, but if there's a point where content on the blog shifted significantly it was the addition of video game reviews almost 3 years ago.  Amidst a miasma of bad games writing, and a growing audience for intellectual discussion of the medium, I saw an opening for games criticism from an artistic, experiential perspective and decided to apply myself toward that goal.  This blog was a safe place to grow comfortable with my writing, which has come a long way since those early posts.

That brings us to some exciting news.  It's with great pleasure that I formally announce a new site dedicated solely to video games and their surrounding culture: Low Cutoff.  I invite you to check out the About page over there which has all the juicy details.  In short, Low Cutoff takes the fundamentals and the hard work I've put into Gold Skulltulla and turns it into a focused video game conversation space.  Expect more frequent posting, new kinds of content, and a fresh sense of style.

This is not the end of Gold Skulltulla though, which will remain live and with all posts left intact.  New video game posts will only show up on Low Cutoff, while pieces for Gold Skulltulla will shift  towards music exclusively.  Microgenre Moment will continue, as will best-of lists.  I'd also like to begin posting what I call Sticker Reviews: bite-sized recommendations of albums or songs that will endorse musicians that are putting out music that's worth your time.  Gold Skulltulla remains my DJ name and I will still make mixes when I find the time.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out Gold Skulltulla, and I hope you'll give Low Cutoff a look as well.  As always, feedback is welcome.  Here's to another 100!

-Dan