Everything I hear about Q reminds me of the 80's Satanic Panic ("There's secret tunnels under the preschool where kids are abused!", claims local schizophrenic). Under interrogation some 5 year olds claimed the Q adjacent Chuck Norris was a pedophile witch:

The 80's Panic is sort of interesting as an evolutionary transitional form: halfway between genuine medieval witch hunts and more modern, sophisticated theories about pedophiles.

There's something about deeply appealing about this idea that allows it to recur under different guises in different eras. An interesting question is how many of these panics originate with genuine schizophrenics like Judy Johnson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial#Initial_allegations

When they're having an episode, schizophrenics can have an awesome creativity that leads them to invent things that are so out of the ordinary that credulous listeners sometimes think "Well that has to be true, how could someone just think that up!".

Charlie Manson, a genuine schizo, had by all accounts this kind of incredible improvisational ability. Beach Boy Dennis Wilson told his friends: "this guy makes up songs on the spot and they're all great!" (they weren't).

Some of Manson's ideas were so crazy that they were impressive. There is nothing in human mythology as insanely cool as Manson's hole in the ground that he had his followers looking for in Death Valley https://www.mansonblog.com/2016/04/the-bottomless-pit.html

I think super-schizos like Manson or Judy Johnson can in this way end up having a disproportionate effect on culture. In this case the origin of the wider craziness is specific and clear, but there are others that can be inferred like Dark Matter.