@Uilleam
Don't worry-- I'm sure Tails understands not to walk off with strange men who ramble about the evils of women.
Your analysis in what ultimately happens to hate groups is spot-on, by the way. Sadly, the point about Gamergate isn't quite right - the timeline suggests they weren't so much destroyed by the alt-right as absorbed into it. This is only made more likely by the fact that r/KotakuInAction still exists as an explicitly alt-right sub with occasional nods to gamer culture. Ultimately, I reckon they were the alt-right's fetal state of sorts, being the first example of hardcore fascists realising they could exploit the loutish, frequently bigoted nature of imageboard culture to their advantage.
Thanks! Though its important to note that that's not the fate of all hate groups-- another option is that the hate groups manage to overcome the genesis of new opinions, but in the process over-consolidate what's considered an acceptable opinion, which they are bound to do due to their attraction to authoritarianism, and is thus unable to adapt when anti-hate groups change their tactics or new events (economic crash, war, etc.) threaten their existence. Or, if the group manages to get what it wants, it tends to grow complacent over time, losing the passion that made the hate so powerful before and thus allowing its power to steadily slip from its hands. By the time the group realizes what has happened and what it has lost, its granted the anti-hate people just enough freedom and momentum to oust it.
As for Gamergate, what I saw happening was that there were splits in how the misogynistic agenda should be spread. Some gamergaters began to wonder if the group had crossed the line with stuff like harrassment campaigns and doxxing, much like the self-proclaimed respectable racists who condemn racial violence and other direct attacks and instead push for feigning concern in order to steadily normalize racism. Whereas others wholeheartedly embraced doxxing, harrassment, etc., seeing those that were harassed as enemies to the revolution that must be purged and made an example of. And along the way you had what I like to call the suckers, the ones who genuinely believed the movement was about ethics in journalism. Of course, they viewed each other as traitors to the cause-- "Stop! You're making me look bad!", "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few feminists!", "How is hating on a bunch of seemingly random women productive in fixing games journalism?", etc. On top of that, the term Gamergate had gained a negative connotation as being the product of whiny nerds and cruel misogynistic bullies once the mainstream culture caught wind of it-- and of course, each side blamed the other. The suckers were either indoctrinated into the other two categories or came to see that the movement was really misogynistic and jumped ship, most of the so-called respectable Gamergaters abandoned the movement once it started to threaten their facade, and the ones that embraced the harassment decided that there was no point in using a dead hashtag to pretend they cared about gaming (and that was really only about putting women down-- by the end of it, the most extreme portions of Gamergate supporters wanted to expand their advocacy for hatred from misogyny into racism and homophobia, and the Gamergate name didn't provide a good platform for those two things) and went with the alt-righters.
Found a good article on the matter. Its from a two years ago so some stuff is outdated, but its pretty good.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/30/7131931/gamergate-is-dead
I do agree with the sentiment that Gamergate foreshadowed the rise of the alt-right by demonstrating how misogyny can catch on on minimally moderated websites and go ignored by the mainstream media until its grown too big to stop quietly and/or quickly. However, the alt-right culture has a different enough culture from Gamergate-- immediately what comes to mind is that there's more emphasis on racism and homophobia in the alt right, and the alt right is also happy to engage in climate change denialism whereas Gamergate never really concerned itself with what happens to the environment-- that I don't consider Gamergate a prototype for it. As you said, its not even pretending to be about gaming anymore, the one thing holding it together and what's in the name. Gamergate is dead. The alt right is a whole 'nother beast.
