I think it's a strong overlap with the anti-vax and science skepticism run amok in our culture. Very similar crowds, and the associated ideologies prey upon similar biases/epistemic vices. Gonna bullet point a few, and then just rant for a bit. Hope this winds up making sense.

• mistrust of authority based upon ignorance (and thus fear) of the field of expertise rather than informed/materialist critique
• a school system that under develops critical thinking skills and scientific literacy
• woo/pseudo-scientific explanations that lend a veil of legitimacy.
• in group reinforcement and encouragement
• tHiNk oF ThE cHiLdReN/superficial appeals to parental instincts
• moral panic/outrage
• hyper-individualistic/agent based world view; there's clear good guys and bad guys and that's why bad things happen

I suspect that upper-middle class white women (UMCWW) are particularly likely to have been socialized in a way that makes them susceptible to some of these. For example, this segment of society is maybe the golden goose for advertisers. UMCWW are often socially isolated and have PLENTY of free time/money. Ads will give anyone brain worms, but these women consume a disproportionate share of day time television, so they're really getting the juice here. Even the programming itself is often times just more advertising in entertainment clothing (Ellen, Dr. Oz, Oprah), but perhaps more importantly, absolutely riddled with woo and pseudo-science. Overtime I suspect this has just normalized those kinds of narratives in the minds of UMCWW and they're inadvertently conditioned to be more accepting of them. I say inadvertently because I don't think advertisers set out to dumb people down - they just gravitate towards the strategies that sell. Well, the more they preyed upon certain biases in human cognition the more it reinforces those very same biases, thus begins a positive feedback loop where advertisers are further incentivized to reengage those same biases. The problem with conditioning a population to be easily persuaded to buy (both literally and figuratively) bullshit, though, is that you can't limit it to just consumerist tendencies. That population is going to be more susceptible to ALL forms of bullshit.

Also, to supplement the dearth of community and solidarity in our hyper-alienated capitalist hell world, UMCWW are probably particularly active on social media. Again - may as well be factory farming for brain worms here. Algorithms drive clicks and attention time above all else, so the more shocking your claim the more attention it's likely to receive. This has lead to kind of an arms race in digital media to create the most addictive experience possible in order to, you guessed it, serve up even more garbage ads pushing the same shit as TV. However, it's no longer just a one way flow of information, advertiser to consumer, but a memetic flow of information amongst the consumers who are all viewing/sharing/discussing the same content. Similar to how people riff on existing memes, these groups will riff on their existing biases/uncritically adopted (and deeply problematic) ideology, and start ramping up the crazy. That's how you get these "healing crystal to anti-vax" pipelines.

So not only is Q shit's epistemic structure similar to the slop UMCWW have been marinating in for decades, but it's largely spread the same way too.

This is only one example of materialist forces at work here. I think there are other factors too, and would strongly encourage someone else to come in and give analysis in a way that they have further expertise in. I FUCKING HATE ADVERTISING, so I decided to focus on this angle for clarity sake.

Edit: Word choice, spelling, clarity, final blurb