Venturing into the Gaming, Geek and Tech World

Hi, my name is Kristeen Romero.

I’m an online content marketer and copywriter by profession. I run this blog, its YouTube channel and Instagram account as a hobby.

My Story

I started PanickedPixel in 2013, after 4 years of success in singing and learning how to mix vocals for Vocaloid covers on my YouTube channel where I was known as ‘kran’. I knew it was time for me to take on a new challenge.

You see, I’m not one to sit still. I always have to be learning something new or improving in some way. I get restless and irritable when I’m not moving forward. Life is pointless unless you’re gaining experience points and leveling up towards a future goal.

But my goals had changed by 2013. Previously, I wanted to pursue a career in singing or audio engineering but life seemed to be leading me elsewhere: I enrolled into a Bachelor’s program in Language & Communication and I was quickly realising that I wasn’t good enough as a singer. It was tough accepting that because I had put so much effort into my work over the years — amassing over 15,000 subscribers and having fans who genuinely enjoyed what I did.

Still, I knew I had to pivot if I wanted to be as successful as I wanted to be. And I knew there was so much more to the world than the community I was in.

My new goal was to become a better content creator & communicator, and to explore other interests I’ve neglected or lacked the resources to get into in the past.

This is what gave birth to the concept of ‘PanickedPixel’ — a platform where I can experiment with different skills (e.g. videography, photography, photo/video editing, public speaking, etc.) while going deeper into the world of gaming, technology, media and geek culture.

Behind the Name

The name ‘PanickedPixel’ was largely derived from my desire to have a name with strong consonants and alliteration. I learned from my marketing classes that brand names with those elements tend to be remembered more easily because of how catchy they sound. With my background in English literature and creative writing, I thought it would be an interesting target to aim for.

Excuse me if I geek out a little too hard on poetic devices and linguistics here but…

To start things off, I knew I wanted ‘Pixel’ in the name because I associated the word with video games and digital images — perfect for what I wanted to do with the brand. It also had strong ‘P’ and ‘K’ consonant sounds, the latter of which I really liked because it matched with the ‘K’ of my first name, Kristeen.

The next step? Since ‘Pixel’ has been so commonly used across countless of communities on the Internet and I didn’t want to add a random set of numbers, I had to pair it up with another word. This is where alliteration came in (sprinkled with some extra consonance and assonance).

With the strong ‘P’ and ‘K’ of ‘Pixel’, I set off to find words that produced the same sounds, were only 1-3 syllables long and matched the concept I had for the brand. ‘Panic’ was the first word that came to mind. I looked at dozens of other words but ‘panic’ seemed to stick — the ‘I’ sound matched with the ‘I’ in ‘Pixel’ and it describes the kind of anxiety I feel whenever trying something new.