Or is the Gator hate just a meme?
This is an excellent question.
Taken out of the Ethan Ralph context, Gator is your standard imageboard weeb. He is competent and intelligent, though his grooming leaves a bit to be desired. The way he dresses and carries himself in public betrays a lack in self-confidence common in young men of the Millennial generation. The clothes are often clean and in good repair, but the entire wardrobe looks as if it was assembled at Target and often fail to compliment his “Tip of the fedora to m’lady” body type. His interests and hobbies are narrow: video games, anime, genre literature like science fiction, and the usual sperg politics. He likes his humor to be edgy and served with a side of hot-takes, but his lack of creativity means his humor is not really organic but derivative from imageboard culture.
Gator is drawn to men like Ethan Ralph and Dick Masterson because he mistakes their confidence as meaningful accomplishments. When Ralph talks about the wads of money he is earning or the “pussy” he is drowning in, you can feel Gator just soaking in all that cheap machismo and trying to visualize himself doing the same. Gator genuinely values his friendship with Ralph & Gator because their acknowledgement of him is taken as validation, his self-esteem is predicated on being included in events like Knoxville and participating in the IBS circus. Being on the ground floor to the literal shitshow is probably the highpoint of his life up until today. His loyalty is genuine and undeserved if we are being honest, his lack of experience stunts his judgement of character and thus what he values about Ralph and Masterson are precisely what one ought to reject.
Gator’s reputation of being an unmitigated faggot is earned by way of Ralph. His sobriety and technical competence is often the only thing that keeps the streams coherent and decently paced. This purchases Gator airtime where he tries to emulate Mr.Metokur in every way (even taking on the man’s speech patterns) but it comes off as forced and lacking in authenticity. He refuses to just be himself because he doesn’t think that will be enough and because Ralph is a manipulative addict, his self loathing never gets addressed. He is Ralph’s creature in the same way Vee is the disgusting pet of Sargon. Some of us feel sympathy for him and others are repulsed, and everyone else feels a mixture of both.
The fact that Gator has yet to become a cow in his own right speaks to his qualities, but he is running out of time. You can’t be Ralph’s lieutenant and avoid the eventuality that you are going to find yourself being the topic of threads in places such as this.
There's a difference between being loyal and being someones bitch.
This says it all, really. The dynamic between Ralph and Gator gives one the impression that Ralph purchased Gator; the kind of transaction where Ralph passes along a bag of commissary to a pack of robust mongoloids.