Might as well respond directly here, that indirect Twitter format is too constricting anyway.
First of all, as you're probably going to see from my arguments, you can't really lump me in with the rest of "the Touhou hater circle". I do share some of their opinions and support them because these viewpoints deserve more representation; the whole Touhou spectacle is in dire need of well-informed criticism and they typically have stronger arguments than regular fans. So I help them out every once in a while if they happen to misrepresent any of the few things I was involved with, or that I know more about than they do. Since they're closer to my own viewpoints, they're very appreciative of that, and they get to keep their argumentative high ground.
Still, I have more differences with them than they have between each other. I do call out particularly bad and petty arguments on their side, and straight up don't care about a lot of aspects they criticize (lore, real-world politics, character designs, commercial advertising stunts, alcoholism, …). For the most part though, I prefer to keep my mouth shut about things I'm not at least somewhat sure about or invested in. Doesn't mean I agree with it.
Also, I've completely stopped looking at the fanwork scene in 2011. And while I do occasionally observe from a distance what's happening in the core series, I haven't actively interacted with any of it since 2018 either.
Kind of like you in a way. So you definitely know more about this than I do, not denying that. These days, I have better things to do than community research; ReC98 is the only reason I'm in this anymore, and once that business stops making money, I'm out.
Completely with you on this one. ReC98 has long solved this argument for me via good old capitalism: I offer my time and skills to do Touhou-related coding and research work in exchange for money, and I'm eternally grateful for everyone who engages in this transaction because they believe it's a worthwhile investment. It's always interesting to know how my customers engage with the franchise beyond this transaction so I can somewhat tailor my product to their interests and make it even more worthwhile for them personally, but why would I judge them for it? That would be utterly self-destructive.
And I don't even have to care about getting more people to play the games because my business is growing just fine. These days, the ReC98 blog drives way more engagement than the actual code because people just like reading about anything and everything hidden within these culturally significant games at the core of the spectacle. Sure, the backer list includes a fair share of gameplay people, but it's far from being the majority. If ReC98 was funded entirely by gameplay fans, it would be in a significantly different place today.
You're talking to the one person who managed to monetize in-depth and highly technical game research toward an audience who doesn't play the games; of course I would agree that gatekeeping is silly. I'd even go further and say that we don't even have to care about what gatekeepers think. Because:
They're driving themselves out of the market with that stance.
I've been consistently selling out all my capacity anyway, whatever they're saying sure isn't hurting my bottom line, nor anyone else's.
Again, I agree as well, because everybody benefits from that. I was simply theorizing why it hasn't happened so far, based on my own impressions.
People are seriously using these terms in this way now? Got any quotes?
But yes, the whole notion has always been there, it's invoked every time someone says "well actually, Touhou is [insert personal conviction about ZUN's main motivation]". I've long moved on to instead just saying the tongue-in-cheek "Touhou is anime" unironically; it captures the overall spectacle better than any individual element by instead referring to the biggest culture it unquestionably overlaps with. All my Touhou-related GitHub repos have the anime tag for precisely this reason.
You know which other term is so overloaded as to be basically meaningless these days? "Doujin". Whenever I use the word, I'm referring to
the exclusively Japanese scene of
producing creative works that
historically grew around
physical, in-person conventions,
hosted at fixed times during the year (thus implying production deadlines),
where these goods are sold, from creators to fans (← real, human interaction!)
thus invariably spawing a piracy scene if some of the resulting goods suddenly end up enjoying a surprising global popularity,
as well as the physical stores that sell these goods after the fact.
Which also happened to be the only sanctioned way of selling Touhou fanworks in the Golden Age (that thankfully neither of the two of us wants to return to).
Hence, the regionally isolated, low-key, person-to-person nature is the entire point. You might copy that concept, relocate it to China, and change the operating language of your piracy scene, fair enough. (Though I'd just refer to the resulting scene as tóngrén then, just like we have a dedicated word for Korean manga.) But as soon as you add global digital distribution, or have any aspirations to grow, develop, and professionalize beyond the above constraints, you've moved past "the doujin spirit", as simple as that. The English Wikipedia page does not mention those things either. So we all might as well stop using the term entirely at that point, and instead specify more clearly which aspect of doujin-ness we're talking about in any specific instance.
As far as I'm concerned, the only distinction that actually matters is whether you act as a hobbyist or a business. Every other term (including indie) is at best tribalism or PR/sympathy-fishing, and at worst upholding the silly, silly East vs. West dichotomy we're (hopefully) trying to move past here.
Looking forward to your citation for precisely that date.
How should it develop then? Are we talking core series or fanworks here? The core series is beyond our control and can only barely be influenced by ZUN's close friends, so that train of thought is not even worth following as far as I'm concerned. "Becoming friends with ZUN and drinking a few beers together" is how the 2010 meme about persuasion continues.
I'm attributing this and other advertising stunts more to ZUN's gradually changing life situation, but who knows. Maybe there is definite proof from a ZUN interview. But until then, it's a pointless discussion about correlation and causation.
aggressive2hu does, this was directed at her.
Indeed, and it's tiresome to engage in this perpetual guessing game.
This was also directed at aggressive2hu and "the circle"'s wishes for more quality in the core series.
(umgefrbt)(rund)(1536x1536).png.8abc8b3ff88bb82b1563074213354d26.png)
(umgefrbt)(rund)(1536x1536).thumb.png.5dc137da57133143dbb947510752f137.png)
Might as well respond directly here, that indirect Twitter format is too constricting anyway. First of all, as you're probably going to see from my arguments, you can't really lump me in with the rest of "the Touhou hater circle". I do share some of their opinions and support them because these viewpoints deserve more representation; the whole Touhou spectacle is in dire need of well-informed criticism and they typically have stronger arguments than regular fans. So I help them out every once in a while if they happen to misrepresent any of the few things I was involved with, or that I know more about than they do. Since they're closer to my own viewpoints, they're very appreciative of that, and they get to keep their argumentative high ground. Still, I have more differences with them than they have between each other. I do call out particularly bad and petty arguments on their side, and straight up don't care about a lot of aspects they criticize (lore, real-world politics, character designs, commercial advertising stunts, alcoholism, …). For the most part though, I prefer to keep my mouth shut about things I'm not at least somewhat sure about or invested in. Doesn't mean I agree with it. Also, I've completely stopped looking at the fanwork scene in 2011. And while I do occasionally observe from a distance what's happening in the core series, I haven't actively interacted with any of it since 2018 either. Kind of like you in a way. So you definitely know more about this than I do, not denying that. These days, I have better things to do than community research; ReC98 is the only reason I'm in this anymore, and once that business stops making money, I'm out. Completely with you on this one. ReC98 has long solved this argument for me via good old capitalism: I offer my time and skills to do Touhou-related coding and research work in exchange for money, and I'm eternally grateful for everyone who engages in this transaction because they believe it's a worthwhile investment. It's always interesting to know how my customers engage with the franchise beyond this transaction so I can somewhat tailor my product to their interests and make it even more worthwhile for them personally, but why would I judge them for it? That would be utterly self-destructive. And I don't even have to care about getting more people to play the games because my business is growing just fine. These days, the ReC98 blog drives way more engagement than the actual code because people just like reading about anything and everything hidden within these culturally significant games at the core of the spectacle. Sure, the backer list includes a fair share of gameplay people, but it's far from being the majority. If ReC98 was funded entirely by gameplay fans, it would be in a significantly different place today. You're talking to the one person who managed to monetize in-depth and highly technical game research toward an audience who doesn't play the games; of course I would agree that gatekeeping is silly. I'd even go further and say that we don't even have to care about what gatekeepers think. Because: They're driving themselves out of the market with that stance. I've been consistently selling out all my capacity anyway, whatever they're saying sure isn't hurting my bottom line, nor anyone else's. Again, I agree as well, because everybody benefits from that. I was simply theorizing why it hasn't happened so far, based on my own impressions. People are seriously using these terms in this way now? Got any quotes? But yes, the whole notion has always been there, it's invoked every time someone says "well actually, Touhou is [insert personal conviction about ZUN's main motivation]". I've long moved on to instead just saying the tongue-in-cheek "Touhou is anime" unironically; it captures the overall spectacle better than any individual element by instead referring to the biggest culture it unquestionably overlaps with. All my Touhou-related GitHub repos have the anime tag for precisely this reason. You know which other term is so overloaded as to be basically meaningless these days? "Doujin". Whenever I use the word, I'm referring to the exclusively Japanese scene of producing creative works that historically grew around physical, in-person conventions, hosted at fixed times during the year (thus implying production deadlines), where these goods are sold, from creators to fans (← real, human interaction!) thus invariably spawing a piracy scene if some of the resulting goods suddenly end up enjoying a surprising global popularity, as well as the physical stores that sell these goods after the fact. Which also happened to be the only sanctioned way of selling Touhou fanworks in the Golden Age (that thankfully neither of the two of us wants to return to). Hence, the regionally isolated, low-key, person-to-person nature is the entire point. You might copy that concept, relocate it to China, and change the operating language of your piracy scene, fair enough. (Though I'd just refer to the resulting scene as tóngrén then, just like we have a dedicated word for Korean manga.) But as soon as you add global digital distribution, or have any aspirations to grow, develop, and professionalize beyond the above constraints, you've moved past "the doujin spirit", as simple as that. The English Wikipedia page does not mention those things either. So we all might as well stop using the term entirely at that point, and instead specify more clearly which aspect of doujin-ness we're talking about in any specific instance. As far as I'm concerned, the only distinction that actually matters is whether you act as a hobbyist or a business. Every other term (including indie) is at best tribalism or PR/sympathy-fishing, and at worst upholding the silly, silly East vs. West dichotomy we're (hopefully) trying to move past here. Looking forward to your citation for precisely that date. How should it develop then? Are we talking core series or fanworks here? The core series is beyond our control and can only barely be influenced by ZUN's close friends, so that train of thought is not even worth following as far as I'm concerned. "Becoming friends with ZUN and drinking a few beers together" is how the 2010 meme about persuasion continues. I'm attributing this and other advertising stunts more to ZUN's gradually changing life situation, but who knows. Maybe there is definite proof from a ZUN interview. But until then, it's a pointless discussion about correlation and causation. aggressive2hu does, this was directed at her. Indeed, and it's tiresome to engage in this perpetual guessing game. This was also directed at aggressive2hu and "the circle"'s wishes for more quality in the core series.