I love the internet, media, and popular culture. I’ve been a movie buff my entire life, and I’ve loved TV and video games for at least as long. When social media had its boom in the mid-2000’s, I used Facebook to share all the weird and fun stuff that I found online. I’d post trailers, funny clips, and all manner of stuff, giving my thoughts on them as I did so. I can’t remember who said it first (I think it may have been Tom Lando), but along the way somebody suggested that I start a blog. And so I founded The Back Row.
My first post on The Back Row was in July of 2010, and at the time I had decided that if I was going to do this thing, I was going to do it for serious. I committed to posting multiple links every day, and actually stressed myself out quite a bit maintaining a regular schedule. But it paid off. Thanks to The Back Row, I’ve amassed a team of top notch writers who regularly contribute to the site, and it has become home to multiple podcast projects that I’m involved in – and I love every one of them.
Lately, though, my life outside the internet has started getting hectic, and as a result I’ve found myself unable to dedicate the time to The Back Row that I used to have. I guess it’s just a symptom of growing up and having a career. So after careful consideration, and discussion with Robin, who has become co-owner of the site over the years, I’m changing things up a bit. Here’s what The Back Row will look like from now on:
- I won’t be posting every day. I’ll still post the occasional video or link when I have something to say about it, and maybe I’ll write more Sunday Short Reviews once in a while, but I’ll be stepping back from my daily writing.
- All of the contributors to the site can continue to write their articles and reviews, and I will continue to post them. This means that while content will be a bit less frequent, it will also be almost entirely original material. I see this as a very good thing.
- TBR will serve as a hub for the multiple podcast projects that it is already home to – and maybe more! Shouts From the Back Row, our movie discussion podcast, will continue on a weekly basis (when summer isn’t drawing us out into the sunlight). Fakelore will resume later this month, and hopefully What the Quimp?! will too, schedules providing. The Trail Went Cold has become Robin’s primary creative project these days, and so his focus will mostly be on that, although he may still write on TBR once in a while.
These changes aren’t major, but I wanted to make sure all you lovely readers know what’s going on, and why there’s suddenly a lot less content being posted on the main blog of the site. I encourage you to subscribe to our various podcasts, which are all on iTunes, and I hope you’ll still make regular visits to this site to see what our wonderful writers have been cooking up.
Thanks for taking the time to look at this site. What was once just an off-the-cuff blog project to share cool media has grown into something much bigger and more fun than I could have anticipated when I started The Back Row, and I couldn’t have done it without all of you.
All the best,
Gill