Serious answer? Internet atheism heavily revolved around the spectacle of intellectual beatdowns, rather than any real promotion of secular views or any kind of serious activism, and a majority of the audience just looking for the next "Hitchslap"

Then elevator gate happened. https://twitter.com/nerdjpg/status/1278744925757231104

For those that don't know, here's a good read on it: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Elevatorgate

It descended into anti-feminist screeds and bigotry from that point. In trying to prove you could be moral without religion, they proved you could also be just as bigoted without it too, no god required

A lot of white supremacists used atheism to push anti-muslim sentiment and further a racist agenda within the wider movement, and were largely left unchallenged, if not welcomed. Atheist forums I belonged to at the time were almost entirely taken over by fascists.

A lot of prominent anti-SJW types got their start in this environment, certain folks who were initially doing video content on debunking creationism and talking about evolution, pivoted to attacking feminism when that's the way the audience trends turned.

Debunking creationists was "done" and would even get criticized for being low hanging fruit. After elevatorgate, they needed more feminist targets, and those same internet atheists found one; Anita Sarkeesian.

You can pretty much draw a direct link between internet atheism's devolution into fascism post-elevatorgate, and what became g*merg*te.

Even some of British TERFdom can be traced to the skeptic movement in the UK. https://theoutline.com/post/6536/british-feminists-media-transphobic?zd=2&zi=qfkic7us

Thankfully, clearing out a load of stuff to make room for an office had me putting all my old Dawkins, Hitchins, and Harris books in a bag to throw to the charity shop.

That whole era of my life was a gigantic turning point for me, and I'm relieved it went the way it did.

Also, I think this is part of the reason why I don't do "dunks" very often.