western touhou fandom hierarchy

unfortunately i quite literally grew up with touhou as ive been exposed to it since i was around 8 (close to 12 years ago by now) but ive only gotten into it starting 2019. i cant say ive lived through every era but i have learned lots about it



been thinking about how content production and fan materials work over here in the west. even though zun's rules are super open, it feels like there's still an hierarchy. like, you see indie fangames on steam crediting original /jp/ circles and zun not just for copyright, but almost like a rite of passage to prove their legitimacy

i feel like a lot of this comes down to how fragmented the western fandom got. back when things were centered around /jp/, translation wikis, and old forums, the community was small enough that "respecting doujin culture" and doujin original standards was the baseline. but as the fandom migrated off message boards and split across discord servers, tiktok, and twitter, the scene broke into completely different bubbles

now you have this weird dynamic where indie devs and old "primary" fans are still playing by traditional doujin rules while a massive casual side of the fandom exists entirely on surface level memes, fumos, and viral music videos like beatmario or project sekai without ever touching the source material or caring where it came from. the broader western crowd gets further away from it

maybe im just saying nonsense but i feel like we've reached the point where the surface level fandom, and i dont mean what it was back then with lightly consuming touhou media, has grown larger than the actual core fandom. you have thousands of people who consider themselves touhou fans but couldn't tell you the plot of eosd

to me, it feels like the western scene is losing its tether to the original doujin culture. we're becoming our own weird, distorted bubble that exists entirely on secondhand info and tiktok memes. the "prestige" of being a longtime fan who understands the doujin side doesn't mean anything to someone who just likes the funny plushie on their fyp

a little bit ironic coming from me i know, but just wanted to know if that's true or not

i personally dont really know how to feel like on this, i'm not a fervent primary who hates and wants to annihilate secondaries and, now, tertiaries like /jp/ anons do, because theres nothing really that can be done and its just time to accept that this is how touhou is evolving, with the passage of time and newer generations with different mindsets, new technologies

what are your thoughts on it? from your personal experience, how do you feel about the western touhou community's state right now, and do you think that doujin mindset is still as strong as it used to be?

sawsk said:

we've reached the point where the surface level fandom, and i dont mean what it was back then with lightly consuming touhou media, has grown larger than the actual core fandom. you have thousands of people who consider themselves touhou fans but couldn't tell you the plot of eosd

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Name a franchise that isn't like that at all. That's what they call larp nowadays

sawsk said:

to me, it feels like the western scene is losing its tether to the original doujin culture. we're becoming our own weird, distorted bubble that exists entirely on secondhand info and tiktok memes. the "prestige" of being a longtime fan who understands the doujin side doesn't mean anything to someone who just likes the funny plushie on their fyp

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As I've said in other threads, the thing is fan in fact stands for fanatic. People who only consume memes or artworks, they just like touhou, they aren't fans. It's like watching a movie based on a book/franchise with heavy lore and calling yourself a fan, that's just not true at all. One shouldn't care about them at all IMO no matter how they call themselves.

sawsk said:

unfortunately

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I think there might be a much broader level of problems than just most of the western Touhou fanbase having a surface-level liking of Touhou, and not even paying attention to the official games, books, and manga of the series.
Most people nowadays just don't seem to want to look up anything on the internet or deeper into things in general. Take for example how people nowadays treat history. Most people only have a surface-level understanding of events such as the World Wars, the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, etc. While it isn't entirely a bad thing for someone to not want to look into a subject they don't find interesting, most people nowadays just take that surface-level understanding (which is often riddled with mistakes or misconceptions) and treat it as fact or all there is to know on the subject and many of them consider themselves "knowledgeable" about it despite that.
Well, I'm just someone who loves learning about things, so maybe I'm somewhat blowing things out of proportion from my observations, but regardless, there is a fundamental problem in which people now just have too short of attention spans to want to learn more about something than that surface-level understanding and just call themselves "knowledgeable" about it to stroke their prides and egos.
I personally find Touhou to be very interesting, and so as I love deep lore and characters in works, I naturally decided to dive deeper into the series. Even to the extent of actually playing the games (which, while I mostly suck at them, I love to play regardless).

SateriCat17 said:

I think there might be a much broader level of problems than just most of the western Touhou fanbase having a surface-level liking of Touhou, and not even paying attention to the official games, books, and manga of the series.
Most people nowadays just don't seem to want to look up anything on the internet or deeper into things in general. Take for example how people nowadays treat history. Most people only have a surface-level understanding of events such as the World Wars, the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, etc. While it isn't entirely a bad thing for someone to not want to look into a subject they don't find interesting, most people nowadays just take that surface-level understanding (which is often riddled with mistakes or misconceptions) and treat it as fact or all there is to know on the subject and many of them consider themselves "knowledgeable" about it despite that.
Well, I'm just someone who loves learning about things, so maybe I'm somewhat blowing things out of proportion from my observations, but regardless, there is a fundamental problem in which people now just have too short of attention spans to want to learn more about something than that surface-level understanding and just call themselves "knowledgeable" about it to stroke their prides and egos.
I personally find Touhou to be very interesting, and so as I love deep lore and characters in works, I naturally decided to dive deeper into the series. Even to the extent of actually playing the games (which, while I mostly suck at them, I love to play regardless).

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True true... Half-knowledge is the worst

As someone from the Chinese Touhou community who has been involved in local offline events and has spent some time observing both Chinese and overseas Touhou fandoms, I think what you are describing is real, but I would not frame it purely as a “hierarchy” problem.

"First of all, you've stratified Touhou fans." This is a well-known saying in the Chinese Touhou community, reflecting a fundamental principle: all Touhou fans, regardless of age, race, occupation, status, or contribution to the community, are equal.

To me, it is more about the distance between different layers of fandom and the original doujin culture.

In almost every large and long-running fandom, once the work becomes big enough, the surface layer will inevitably become much larger than the core layer. Touhou is no exception. In the past, especially when communities were centered around forums, wikis, imageboards, translation groups, and smaller circles, people had to pass through certain “gateways” before they could really participate. You had to know where the games came from, who ZUN was, what doujin culture meant, why circles credited each other, why derivative works had their own norms, and so on.

But now, because of platforms like TikTok, Twitter, Discord, YouTube, Bilibili, Douyin, and other algorithm-driven spaces, people can encounter Touhou through a single meme, a Fumo photo, a remix, a short video, a Project Sekai cover, or a viral clip without ever touching the games or even realizing that Touhou began as a one-person doujin game series. That creates a very different kind of fan.

I do not think these people are “fake fans” by default. Many people enter a fandom through superficial things first. That is normal. In China, this also happens. Some people first encounter Touhou through memes, music, Fumos, mobile games, cosplay, MMD, or random Bilibili videos. Some of them remain casual fans forever, but some eventually go deeper and start playing the games, reading the print works, joining offline events, making doujin works, or learning about the history of the community.

So I do not think the problem is that casual fans exist. The real problem is whether the community still has a functioning path from surface-level interest to deeper participation.

This is where I partially agree with you. If the surface fandom becomes completely disconnected from the original works, doujin circles, and community memory, then Touhou risks becoming just a floating aesthetic — cute girls, plushies, memes, remixes, and disconnected character images. At that point, the fandom can still be large, but it becomes culturally hollow.

However, I also do not think the old /jp/ style hostility toward secondaries or tertiaries is useful. Wanting to “annihilate” newer layers of fandom is unrealistic and self-destructive. A fandom that only protects its purity but cannot absorb newcomers will slowly become a closed museum. On the other hand, a fandom that only chases memes and viral content while forgetting its roots will become an empty brand shell.

The difficult task is to preserve the core without turning it into elitism.

It may be fair to say that Touhou itself has always been a decentralized community. The reason Touhou has come this far was never some highly centralized, official, top-down operation; nor was it a system of silencing criticism and controlling discourse, let alone some emperor-like authority holding the exclusive right to interpret its meaning.

The valuable principles embodied by Touhou are, in fact, the very things people have repeated countless times: openness, tolerance, and a creator-oriented doujin ecosystem.

From my perspective, the so-called “prestige” of being a longtime fan or understanding doujin culture still matters, but mostly inside creative and organizational spaces. For example, if someone wants to make a serious fangame, organize an event, translate materials, write analysis, produce doujin works, or represent Touhou in a more public way, then knowledge of the original works and doujin norms absolutely matters. It is not just gatekeeping. It is cultural literacy.

But for someone who only likes a funny Fumo on their feed, that kind of prestige naturally means nothing. And honestly, I do not think we can force it to mean something to them.

So perhaps the better question is not “how do we stop surface-level Touhou fandom?” but “how do we build bridges from surface-level Touhou fandom to the deeper doujin culture?”

In the Chinese community, offline events such as THO/THP, fan quizzes, doujin markets, music circles, translation work, and local gatherings are still very important for this reason. They give people a place to move from passive consumption to participation. Even a casual fan who comes for Fumos or music might eventually discover the games, the print works, the setting, the characters, and the broader doujin ecosystem.

I think the Western community may need something similar: not necessarily the same structure, but more spaces that connect memes and casual enjoyment back to the original works and the history of fan creation. Entry guides, accessible explanations, fangame credits, translation projects, community events, and respectful discussion of doujin culture can all help.

So my answer would be: yes, I think the Western Touhou community has become more fragmented and more distant from the original doujin mindset than before. But I do not think that means the core culture is dead. It means the core has become one layer among many, rather than the obvious center of the whole fandom.

That is not entirely good or bad. It is the result of Touhou surviving long enough to enter a new era.

The real question is whether the people who understand Touhou’s doujin roots can keep creating, organizing, explaining, translating, and building communities — without becoming bitter gatekeepers. If they can, then the surface layer may not destroy the core. It may instead become a large reservoir of potential newcomers.

But if the core gives up, isolates itself, or only complains about casual fans, then yes, the fandom will probably drift further and further away from what made Touhou special in the first place.

sawsk said:

what are your thoughts on it? from your personal experience, how do you feel about the western touhou community's state right now, and do you think that doujin mindset is still as strong as it used to be?

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I only am against pro-ship larpers, they're insufferable, shoving their fav ships everywhere and sometimes trying to make it look canon.
Im not criticizing other ones since it would be a lil hypocritical cuz im a larper myself (larper of umamusume and vocaloid/utau, ofc without shipping).

Honestly i feel like larps took over touhou, but i also feel like it's not for long.

Well Touhou guidelines require to properly credit works of other creators you used and to make it obvious it is not an official product. So to follow these guidelines add such information

I don't really understad what do you mean by "traditional doujin rules". To be honest most of Western fans (even "primaries") don't engage much with doujin environment (to be fair me too. I research Touhou Doujin without participating much in actual events). This phenomenon exist mostly only in Japan, China and Korea (though in these countries this phenomenon can have some differences). There are similar things in the West but there are also some distinction. It was okay for old Touhou fans to reupload arrangements by circles on Youtube or to reupload stuff from Niconico. Many fans don't bother much about proper crediting. Western fans are much more tolerant towards piracy. Such kind of behaviour is considered bad in Japanese Doujin community. But from another side small gatherings with random people just to talk about Touhou and related stuff are much less common in the West than in Japan or China. The doujin rules are loose and may be interpreted in many ways. There is some common understanding of the rules and in different areas they may differ. Even "respect" is understanded in many ways.

For now I see 4 bubbles: Japanese, Western, Chinese and Korean Touhou bubbles. Each of them has their features, pros and cons. I don't know much about TikTok Touhou content, but I don't think Touhou memes are a bad thing. Anyway it would be nice to have more high-quality content. About secondhand info, well if you don't know Japanese or don't want to use in-browser translator then all information you can about Japanese side is secondhand. In all Touhou bubbles there are "opinion leaderes" which translate stuff from other bubbles and for most people it is easier to just follow these people. Japanese bubble don't know much about other bubbles too and they mostly know only about some really major things from other bubbles.

To answer the main question, I don't really think there is any kinf of hierarchy in Western Touhou community, but there is a decentralized network with a lot of smaller bubbles inside Western Touhou community. Some fans care more about fangames, some fans care more about fanmusic, etc. Some of these bubbles are less well-known but there are quite a lot them. Yes, there are quite a lot of fans who don't interact much with Touhou official content or fanmade content. But such fans exist not only in Touhou community and not only in the West. It is important to help these fans to get more involved in different community activities and in general there could be more community activities.

But talking about whole Touhou community there is an actual hierarchy. At the top there is TSA (ZUN), below semi-official groups and after that Touhou bubbles. If my explanation is not clear then I hope this simplified scheme may help you.

Naprzeciw said:

I only am against pro-ship larpers, they're insufferable, shoving their fav ships everywhere and sometimes trying to make it look canon.
Im not criticizing other ones since it would be a lil hypocritical cuz im a larper myself (larper of umamusume and vocaloid/utau, ofc without shipping).

Honestly i feel like larps took over touhou, but i also feel like it's not for long.

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Larp larp larp larp. Larp larp.
It's called liking a thing. I like cheese without being an expert in mozzarella and parmesan. One doesn't have to learn everything about random shit on the internet AND apologise for not doing that

Naprzeciw said:

I only am against pro-ship larpers, they're insufferable, shoving their fav ships everywhere and sometimes trying to make it look canon.
Im not criticizing other ones since it would be a lil hypocritical cuz im a larper myself (larper of umamusume and vocaloid/utau, ofc without shipping).

Honestly i feel like larps took over touhou, but i also feel like it's not for long.

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I'll just say that while Vocaloid seems somewhat interesting to me, I don't have any interest in Umamusume. I'm just not very interested in horse stuff. My sister adores horses, but I doubt she'd be interested in it either as she loves the horse animal.
But anyway, onto your "shipping larper" topic (had to look up what "larping" even means), I definitely don't agree with how people often just ship characters together and fervently treat it as "canon" either.
ZUN even states that really no-one in Gensokyo is "gay" (besides probably Hisami), though I suppose it could be up to the individual to interpret it how they like. I personally am not someone who really agrees with gay relationships (but I don't agree with "transgender" ideas even more), but much like my Mama, I won't hate somebody for being gay either, unless they are nasty about it (read, someone calling you "homophobic").
Still, I guess I am a little hypocritical too in that I like some yuri works (though mainly because a lot of yuri works seem to have interesting stories). Though that second part is quite off-topic...

SateriCat17 said:

ZUN even states that really no-one in Gensokyo is "gay" (besides probably Hisami)

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Hon hon hon. That exact "no one in 'kyo is gay" post is fake AFAIK. Zun just doesn't really care what do the doujineers do until it stays in the doujins, he wouldn't ideologically split the community like that.

But of course people have to finally find the border between fiction and reality. If "canon" is only the thing Zun says, then it's absolutely adamant, right? A random person online calling Miko a transgender doesn't make her one, because 1. unconfirmed 2. it's an IMAGINARY CHARACTER, just get busy with somethin.


About the transgender thing. They literally had Sayori as a mascot several years ago, do you guys still not think they are mostly just attention seekers lying about themselves online?

fazun said:

Larp larp larp larp. Larp larp.
It's called liking a thing. I like cheese without being an expert in mozzarella and parmesan. One doesn't have to learn everything about random shit on the internet AND apologise for not doing that

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acting as if i was hating on people like that even tho i admitted on being a larper myself

Naprzeciw said:

acting as if i was hating on people like that even tho i admitted on being a larper myself

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That's not what I meant at all. Maybe my English is too bad to express that... I was talking about you
You don't have to call yourself words for not learning the whole lore of a thing you don't care that much.

fazun said:

That's not what I meant at all. Maybe my English is too bad to express that...
I was talking about you.
You don't have to call yourself words for not learning the whole lore of a thing you don't care that much.

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i mean, i do sometimes act as if i was some big fan of vocaloids/utau for fun and to troll vocaloid/utau haters, also glazing teto cuz she's the most popular (atleast from what i see), even tho i (rarely) only listen to like few vocaloid songs, and teto not even being my fav, from how i see the word (or rather i say "acronym") "larp" is being used and in what occasions, and considering the meaning of the acronym (live action roleplay), i guess this is larping

Yurifags are at the bottom of the hierarchy for proving C.S. Lewis right and for being southeast asian. Since Umamusume was brought up did you know that yurifags literally had a cabal where they would send death threats to random people for not believing in their delusions? The ringleader was a moderator in the official western Umamusume discord server and the mf never even touched the game. Umamusume also nearly got cancelled because of a yuri episode or something that really pissed off the people who owned the irl horses so they threatened CyGames to take it down or they'll revoke the rights to use their horses.

Coming kind of late on that thread but, what the fuck this did devolve into?

I'll try to cover what I believe is relevant to the thread but, at the same time, I'm really curious as to where this goes. It also gave me ideas for new threads, to debate or give reflections to.

Anyway, to say that there are hierarchies is I believe, not really accurate? I'm no expert on the subject but, I'd say it's more like circles within the sphere of "Western" Touhou. That you learn from YouTube, TikTok, Bili Bili or whatever else; it doesn't matter as much as the amount of effort you're willing to put into the subject is proportional to your interest in it. What I'm trying to say is that all roads leads to Rome, but there are some who don't want to go the "full" distance and makes camps near the roads while feeding off the supplies coming out of the Great City. Some "camps" are fine, some others are the kind of people who have a performative liking into Touhou. It isn't necessarily wrong to temporarily be in such camp as long as you intend to go towards the greater goal, here being actually figure out what is Touhou and it's intricacies. However, indeed, remaining for too long only dilutes the main thing and becomes a sort-of comfortable prison.

On my part, I don't believe I'm the most devoted fan of all but, I tried some stuff here and there. I tried the mainline (both PC-98 and Windows) games in the majority and dedicated myself to a few (6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14), where I play from time to time. Not the best player so far but, manageable in Normal until Stage 6. I don't really have an interest in reading the mangas but, I believe my understanding of characters is good enough (even if I may have biased views here and there.) At least, I go look up the Touhou Wiki when I need a refresher. I got part of Touhou at around the start of my teenage years because of the COVID pandemic and at the time, the Bad Apple!! resurgence on YouTube. Then I learnt about the game, thought it looked cool, tried Ten Desires because no way there could be a thirteenth game, can it? Then the rest is history. I kept the world of Gensokyo to myself until recently. Not the oldest fan but neither the youngest. Touhou basically became my own immersive world where I'd play the games and consume fan content here and there to play around in my mind.

The parallel of person liking a franchise/series and the fan is I believe really accurate. For someone who watched Akira the first time, I was so impressed that I bought the whole manga for myself (the 35th anniversary boxset). I learnt that the movie was an adaption; what changed between the movie and the manga? It's a fact that the adaptation looks amazing and still to this day it is a used standard in animation. However, a lot glaze it without no particular reason other than for how it looks or it's cyberpunk aesthetic. Not a lot of people read the manga where the actual plot lives because a majority search the accessible, well-polished image. Some get so deep in the aesthetic of what they like that they become fans yet it's a minority. I got into Touhou because I was intrigued by the gameplay and wanted to try. It also happens that there's have a very complex world where I can toy and experiment with and it became my main fixation.

As of current, I do believe that Touhou is in a odd state. I blame half of it on ZUN and the fandom. I'm not really well placed to talk about it but, I do agree that the performative circles does seem to get the most attention out of them all. Mainly because those part of the fandom are on common social media but also cater towards more people outside of the forum dweller, the mainline player or the fanfic creator. Characters like Sakuya are crazy popular for those who just started into the series because she is often compared to the "female maid" equivalent of DIO. basic example but I think it's a solid one. Shippers, I'll be cautious but, it's very much because of the looks and basic character archetypes; think of a pairing like Aya x Hatate or something. LARPers... they play pretend, what am I supposed to say?

I think it's a matter of making high-effort products more easily available. There are ships that are really intriguing and much more complex outside of the "horny Yukari hitting on the rebellious Reimu." There can be games that are accessible as Touhou LostWord with the same level of art direction and better gameplay/no shitty money-related mechanics. You can have memes and inside jokes without distilling it to constantly saying ⑨. Then again, Touhou is a large landscape that's hitting 30 years in a short time. For a doujin series, it's insane that it still stands to this day. I don't dismiss that there are things that needs addressing; personally, the third-generation Touhou cast have no purpose and ZUN barely gives them any "scaffholding" to care for them in the first place. Go back to Touhou 13/13.5 and Gensokyo wouldn't be really different. However, like I pointed out I think it's a symptom of the odd direction Jun'ya has, the way Touhou is introduced to people (rhythm games, collabs, etc) and the lack of dedicated high-quality content that is available.

i think some people are reading this as me saying that casual fans / people who dont play the games arent real fans, which isnt really what i meant

i dont really care about someone knowing every game or every piece of lore, and i definitely dont think you need to be some huge doujin expert to be a touhou fan. people can just like the music, characters, memes, fumos, whatever and thats fine. i think the actual thing im trying to get at is more about how different the western fandom feels now compared to older communities

like, when i say "surface level fandom" im not really talking about someone casually liking touhou, because thats always existed. im talking more about the fact that the surface layer has become so large and so visible that it can sometimes feel like thats what western touhou is primarily associated with now, especially on the big social media platforms

and theres a difference between casually liking something and confidently building your entire understanding of it from secondhand memes / viral content. the former doesnt bother me at all, the latter can sometimes lead to really weird misconceptions becoming normalized

at the same time i dont think this is some one way decline where old fans are enlightened and new fans are ruining everything. touhou has always changed with the communities around it, and there are probably plenty of newer fans who eventually get deeper into the games, doujin, music, etc. while there are probably plenty of longtime fans who never really cared about that stuff either

so yeah i probably worded the original post a bit too much like there is a strict hierarchy when i dont really think there is one. its more like there are a bunch of different bubbles now, and some of them are much more disconnected from the older doujin side than others

i guess what im actually wondering is whether that disconnect is just a normal consequence of touhou getting bigger, or whether it means something important about the culture is genuinely being lost

mofuplasty said:

so yeah i probably worded the original post a bit too much like there is a strict hierarchy when i dont really think there is one. its more like there are a bunch of different bubbles now, and some of them are much more disconnected from the older doujin side than others

i guess what im actually wondering is whether that disconnect is just a normal consequence of touhou getting bigger, or whether it means something important about the culture is genuinely being lost

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Rephrased like that, it paints an another thing and I don't think I'm well-placed enough to answer it correctly. I have trouble understanding what you are trying to say. Sounds mean but the way I see it? It seems as if what you are trying to describe is too abstract yet for it to be formulated clearly.

Thread's kind of old but, in case you are still interested in your thought then give it a second chance. Take your time, draft it, plan it, divise it, whatever. For now, I think I speak to the majority here that we can understand your point as far as how well you can explain it and, in my view, it looks like you struggle with it. It's a very big and abstract subject, that I sympathize, but go back and redraft what you want to say.

kanedafanatic said:

Rephrased like that, it paints an another thing and I don't think I'm well-placed enough to answer it correctly. I have trouble understanding what you are trying to say. Sounds mean but the way I see it? It seems as if what you are trying to describe is too abstract yet for it to be formulated clearly.

Thread's kind of old but, in case you are still interested in your thought then give it a second chance. Take your time, draft it, plan it, divise it, whatever. For now, I think I speak to the majority here that we can understand your point as far as how well you can explain it and, in my view, it looks like you struggle with it. It's a very big and abstract subject, that I sympathize, but go back and redraft what you want to say.

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what im trying to describe is pretty simple imo, its basically a change in where the average western fan actually encounters and participates in touhou

older communities were more centered around forums, imageboards, translation sites, doujin circles, niconico/youtube, etc. so even if someone wasnt especially knowledgeable, they were at least usually interacting with touhou through communities where the games, fanworks, doujin culture, etc were actually part of the surrounding context

now a huge amount of western exposure comes through twitter/tiktok/shorts/etc where touhou is presented as isolated characters, memes, remixes, fumos, clips, collabs and whatever else the algorithm happens to push. obviously none of that is inherently bad and none of those people are fake fans, but the surrounding context is much easier to lose

so what im wondering is whether that actually represents a cultural shift in western touhou itself, or if im just noticing the most visible part of a much larger fandom that still has plenty of deeper communities underneath it

i dont really have a conclusion either way, thats kind of, yknow, why i made the thread in the first place...

mofuplasty said:

i think some people are reading this as me saying that casual fans / people who dont play the games arent real fans, which isnt really what i meant

i dont really care about someone knowing every game or every piece of lore, and i definitely dont think you need to be some huge doujin expert to be a touhou fan. people can just like the music, characters, memes, fumos, whatever and thats fine. i think the actual thing im trying to get at is more about how different the western fandom feels now compared to older communities

like, when i say "surface level fandom" im not really talking about someone casually liking touhou, because thats always existed. im talking more about the fact that the surface layer has become so large and so visible that it can sometimes feel like thats what western touhou is primarily associated with now, especially on the big social media platforms

and theres a difference between casually liking something and confidently building your entire understanding of it from secondhand memes / viral content. the former doesnt bother me at all, the latter can sometimes lead to really weird misconceptions becoming normalized

at the same time i dont think this is some one way decline where old fans are enlightened and new fans are ruining everything. touhou has always changed with the communities around it, and there are probably plenty of newer fans who eventually get deeper into the games, doujin, music, etc. while there are probably plenty of longtime fans who never really cared about that stuff either

so yeah i probably worded the original post a bit too much like there is a strict hierarchy when i dont really think there is one. its more like there are a bunch of different bubbles now, and some of them are much more disconnected from the older doujin side than others

i guess what im actually wondering is whether that disconnect is just a normal consequence of touhou getting bigger, or whether it means something important about the culture is genuinely being lost

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I'm probably among that "newer Touhou fan" group, as I got into Touhou around mid to late 2024, but of course, unlike most, I delved pretty deep into Touhou, even earlier on in my journey. Mainly because whenever I am deeply interested in something, I go to great lengths to deepen my understanding of that something I'm interested in.
But, I suppose because of that, there'd probably be some who would mistake me for an older fan. lol
As I've stated before, I generally don't interact with fandoms much, but Touhou's is almost certainly an exception.
Regardless, my long tangent aside, as I've mentioned before, there can certainly be a lot of problems when the "surface-level understanding people" become too prolific within a fandom around a certain subject.
Of course, I believe it comes down to what the subject is about and how "worth it" it is for those people to delve deeper into it.
But, with a series like Touhou, I see it as something which one should probably seek out the deeper aspects to it rather than just rely on that surface-level understanding. Touhou is a very deep work, both within and outside of the fandom. And both within and outside of it's canon.
It's a work that has changed and influenced internet culture whether one likes it or not. To some extent, I would go so far as to say that Touhou is a "historical" work comparable to The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Legend of Zelda, Mario, Minecraft, and many other such works.
Many have unknowingly seen things relating to Touhou even if they don't have that much interaction with other Japanese works.
And now, with the upcoming release of the EoSD remake, Touhou could become a lot more seen in mainstream media in the near-future.
While this is good to some extent or another, there will probably be even more of those with that "surface-level understanding" amongst the fandom.
Of course, how the EoSD remake will affect the Touhou fandom's future remains to be seen.

Remember that racist 4channers were the indigenous people of Touhou so they're at the top of the hierarchy.