Litecoin is the original and shittiest fork.
Maybe so, but it's very much entrenched among cryptocurrency traders/exchanges and also seems to function as a test bed for Bitcoin development (or at least the most prominent one). I used to think LTC would die, but it never does, and I've come to terms with that.
Yes and its whats causing the massive spikes we keep seeing the last few weeks. people are encouraging others because of the bitcoin gold that you could get after the fork and that could be worth a little.
I don't even think there is a wallet available yet. Nor the code, and no word on replay protection. Thus, no way it can be added to exchanges near the time of the fork. This launch doesn't seem to be going well, but I suppose there are 2 weeks left.