Who authored the earliest Q drops and what investigations exist into Q’s identity?

1. The origin story: who posted the first Q drops and why that matters

Reporting and reference works identify a 4chan moderator, Paul F. (referred to in media as “Furber”), as the author of the earliest Q posts that appeared in October 2017 on 4chan’s /pol/ board—these initial “Calm Before the Storm” drops established Q’s persona and recruited the early community that turned crumbs into a movement ^{[1] [5] [6]}.

2. The migration to 8chan and the Watkins family’s centrality

After Q’s initial phase on 4chan, the account moved to 8chan (later 8kun), a platform controlled and administered by Jim Watkins and run on the ground in recent years by his son Ron Watkins; multiple journalists and researchers have connected Ron and Jim Watkins to the Q persona during the movement’s 2018–2020 height, and Ron’s role as site administrator made him a focal figure for suspicions that he authored or at least controlled later Q drops ^{[4] [7] [1]}.

3. What investigations and studies have tried to identify Q?

Investigative reporting, documentary footage, and academic authorship attribution have all probed Q’s identity: mainstream reporters and documentaries questioned the Watkinses and documented ties such as shared hosting or administrative control ^{[4] [7]}, while supervised machine‑learning linguistic analyses concluded that two different individuals—named in academic summaries as Paul F. and Ron W.—best match Q’s shifting linguistic signature, suggesting successive authorship rather than a single long‑running insider ^{[3] [2]}.

4. Evidence, denials, and the unresolved gaps

Evidence marshaled by journalists includes platform control, IP/address overlaps (reporting flagged Jim Watkins’ suspected shared IP with Q‑directory sites), and on‑camera statements captured in investigative documentaries where Ron Watkins appeared to admit writing some posts—yet both Watkinses and other implicated figures have publicly denied sole responsibility, and major outlets cautiously report association or possibility rather than incontrovertible proof ^{[7] [4] [1]}. Academic authorship methods find probabilistic matches but stop short of legal attribution, and platform investigations (e.g., internal Facebook work on Q‑themed communities) document spread and influence rather than providing forensic proof of authorship ^{[3] [8]}.

5. Competing interpretations and motivations behind attribution

Alternative explanations persist: some scholars emphasize that Q was a social phenomenon enabled by “bakers” and community amplification on boards like /htg/ and /pol/, meaning multiple actors (including anonymous forum posters and administrative hands) created Q’s textual and cultural life; others point to the Watkinses’ incentive structure—platform control, monetization, and reputation within those communities—as reasons they might have authored or facilitated Q content ^{[8] [9] [2]}. Reporting also notes Jim Watkins’ prior business history and platform interests, which critics say create potential conflicts and motives for involvement ^[7].

6. The bottom line and remaining uncertainty

Taken together, the best publicly available work—journalistic interviews, platform records, documentary clips, and computational authorship studies—supports a two‑stage origin: an early author associated with 4chan moderation (Paul F./Furber) and later contributions or control by the Watkinses on 8chan/8kun (Ron and/or Jim Watkins), but no single source in the public record has produced incontrovertible forensic proof that would satisfy a legal standard of identification; academic papers provide probabilistic attribution and reporting shows strong circumstantial links, while denials and evidentiary limits leave the question not fully closed ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.