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So uh that's me again (i got addicted on this place, please help), i wanna tell my last experience (prior moriya shrine) in the english community. You probably know about Touhou Game Jams, for those don't know in short are competitions where people (either individually or on a team) try to make Touhou fangames. I got interested on the Jams due some Streamer played all the games, and at the time i was searching a way to express my pixel, and maybe counter a guy who also does pixel art and teach me how to improve. So just when i found the oficial site, i found that they were actually making another one! (It was the 8th one, it was themed of dreams) and i was ready to search people to work with. I far as i can tell, i was a bit timid; overall, it was my first Jam ever and it was my chance to demostrate my talent! So i got my team only conformed by 3 people, i still remember how tense i was but at the same time i was like "Ok, a new challenge is coming!" Those days where i was spriting were great, but the game was... well i can say that it was one of the least popular games of the Jam. For those who are wondering which game i collab, it was called "Sanae Dream". Let me search a footage of this game... 3:22:22 ( At least, i liked his reaction where he saw sanae doing AYAYAYAYAYAY with her stick xd) So yeah, i was a bit dissapointed, but i then i said "Maybe next time?" fortunately for me, another Jam appeared almost in the same time, and this time I WAS MORE THAN READY! It was the Pride Jam, i got my team, and even better talented so more people can see me and i can finally demostrate my talent! What could be go wrong? ... My PC charger broke during the Jam... (yes it was a Laptop) This time i was shocked and i couldn't believed, they where surprised when i tell them that happened, i said that i could make the pixel art on a phone... BAD DECISION i couldn't replicate how good i was on PC. And even worse, i was on a bad moment IRL outside internet, before anything even worse happened, on mid PrideJam, i said to the team that i decided to leave because of the unexpected issues.... That was sad... If you are wondering, i think they did a Paper Mario Styled Game featuring Youmu and Reisen. Yes, It hurts to me because I LOVE Paper mario. https://kirokko.itch.io/paper-touhou-pride-jam-4 (They give me a Special good bye and mentioned me on the game's credits on this site.) Then after days before Touhou Game Jams 9 ended (why it was not themed as cirno's, that could be perfect chance), i saw someone searching some pixelart, i was in to do some pixelart, but i was already not longer interested of it, because i was going back to play Bomberman. So i some of the sprites they need me to do and left. But... now i want to do it Again! Maybe this time is a winner! I dont want to win for sure but REALLY want to demostrate my part! Some day, some day... Greetings!

Time to get this off my chest. Alright, this thread has been spurred out of both seeing @CountVonNumenor's thread about burnout and also the general state of the Touhou fanbase on other sites, most notably Reddit (which has been going through a ditch), in which most Touhou fans/internet denizens seem to be downright oblivious/blind to changes or downright hostile to those who are protesting changes which keep the site aware of the users and keep it useful to everyone. To give a synopsis for clarity, I'm going to cover how Touhou fans existed throughout the years and how the internet changed the Fandom from a mostly creative fandom to a sanitized corporate outcome over the years, which inspires no creativity. Some of it will talk about Touhou, some will not, given that this sort of thing can apply to any fandom that exists on corporate-owned websites and not fandom owned. This kind of progression is why I'm giving the outlook a Terribad stamp due to the short attention spans of Touhou fans and the rabid tribalism of people justifying how Reddit is right in their horrible changes which will shoot them right back in the butt. This is sort of the expansion of the forum thread about attention spans here: This discussion is for people who have an attention span. (You know who you are ) Information will be kept into spoiler sections in order to save on scrolling. This is all based on my own opinions on what has occurred over the years. 1. The Start of the Internet (Touhou Fans Eating Good) This kind of discussion will talk about the early internet | around the <2000> s 2. The Rotting Starts (Sanitization and blandness starts) Hmmm, this probably started around the 2008-2020 this is when sites started to go corpo mode and start profiteering off the users. 3. What it is now◝(^⌣^)◜--> ^o^ --> n-n (People capitulate to Greed for instant satsifaction) The complete change of culture in Touhou | 2020-Present Time to act as a boomer, even though I was born at the time in which old forums were going out. 4. Burnout Zone (Opinion on why the fandom is at an all time low for creativity) So how is this going to end up? (Conclusion - Touhou fans and everyone hate everyone else) What are you looking at?

The current state of the community seems to be an indirect consequence of something bigger, which is mostly how the western society and internet culture have changed between early 2000s and today. If you go to the japanese Touhou communities you will see a tremendous difference, they are on a whole separate world. I found out and about Touhou and started playing the games in 2019, so the community hasn't changed much for me, just became a bit worse, but I noticed the change in western society over all these years. I remember the innocence and simplicity of the 2000s, and the whole essence of Touhou fits the 2000s and 2010s perfectly in a way. Over the years, the mainstream western culture has changed drastically to become lower quality, more generic and less creative or funny/quirky. Real diversity gets killed by the peer pressure for us to all fit in and become exact copies of each other, while the masses promote fake diversity through the idea that superficial traits define our entire being. I blame the most common social media for this, like Twitter, Instagram Reddit and Tiktok. These 4 platforms alone destroyed the integrity and sanity of western society. In the western fandom of japanese culture, Touhou became mainstream, and when that happens, all the downsides of the mainstream come to the community. It doesn't mean that the good portion of the fanbase is dead, but it's relatively much smaller than the mainstream. The mainstream part of the Touhou fandom starts relying more on the fanmade media aspects that originally brought them in, and then they introduce overused memes and ideas, etc etc. I love plushies and I wouldn't mind having a fumo, but fumos are extremely overrated. It's ok to make memes and joke about things and like to watch or mention and joke about very popular fanmade media, but when this is used as a way to spread information about what Touhou is, it brings an even worse part of the mainstream: the one that doesn't know Touhou and doesnt care. People get introduced to Touhou with these fumos and memes and Scarlet Police funky this fucky that and gachas, and they become fans of this content, but then the newcomers don't know, care or like the official Touhou content but are now a part of the fandom. When it comes to the creative part of the fandom, it got severely affected by the downsides of social media peer pressure. The addiction of likes, fame, upvotes, etc. This is why I don't follow the most popular western Touhou youtubers, and why I strongly avoid the biggest Touhou places and don't really show up in social media places. There isn't much you can do other than to try to filter out the bad side. I play/follow Touhou and interact with some Touhou fandom places, but I avoid talking about Touhou in unrelated places or in the mainstream, with the fear of somebody recognising it for something that it isn't and then bringing an awkward conversation or something. The problem with the modern Touhou fandom is just a consequence of what's happening in the west, eventually it gets sorted out. Like Pepi said, there are still many creative and cool parts of the Touhou fandom, and there always will be, just not as much in the most mainstream places. The Sanae Kochiya from The Touhou Project