The Trad Wife to ConservaSkank Pipeline: Can We Reverse It?

As a millennial observer of late-stage internet dumpster fires, I’ve noticed a trend more disturbing than my neighbor Tom trying to fit through my cat flap. It’s a phenomenon I’m calling the “Trad Wife to ConservaSkank Pipeline,” and it’s destroying everything we thought we knew about Christians, women, MAGA, and even what it means to be conservative.

Remember the Trad Wives? Those serene influencers in flowy linen dresses, sourdough perpetually proofing on their quartz countertops, homeschooling their seven children while their bearded, vaguely lumberjack fake husbands chopped wood in the background? They were selling a fantasy: domestic bliss, submission, and a return to “traditional values” in a world gone mad. They were the picture of purity, the antidote to our degenerate millennial hook-up culture. Well, plot twist: a shocking number of them have defected, and they’re not just leaving their fake internet marriages—they’re becoming… ConservaSkanks.

What’s a ConservaSkank, you ask? Ah…I remember when my mind was once as unspoiled and pure, like unpasturized whole milk. I had no idea, either. But then I saw a viral thread where a Conservative influencer posted her (too small?) engagement ring, and I saw the comments. There it was. I have read it and it has now burned into my soul forever: A death battle between these ConservaSkanks and an unholy coalition of Christian Tradwives, gen-z red pill girlies, and basically anyone with an iota of moral virtue. And let me tell you, it got catty! One accused another of being brainwashed, then got a clapback about their ex-boyfriend’s V.D. It was like several cautionary tales rolled up into one big cautionary joint and smoked by every non-liberal woman on Twitter. Ugh!

ConservaSkank.It’s the perfect term for what happens when a Trad Wife influencer gets “red-pilled” on the financial opportunities of the conservative grift, but simultaneously gets “black-pilled” on the whole “saving myself for marriage” thing. She sheds the prairie dresses for skin-tight MAGA merch, trades the sourdough starter for cocktail hour at the country club, and starts monetizing her looks with the very “beta males” she once claimed to despise. They’re still spouting right-wing talking points, but now it’s from a penthouse overlooking a city they secretly hate (usually Dubai, tbh), while their DMs are filled with Wall Street bros offering to fly them to Cabo. Their aspirations went from “head of the household” to “Top 10% on OnlyFans.”

So, the question on everyone’s mind (okay, my mind) is: can we reverse it? Can we get these ConservaSkanks back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant where they belong? Honestly? I don’t think so. Why have a bunch of needy kids and a dopey husband when you can just become your own pimp (to own the libs)? It’s Late Capitalism, baby! You can’t put that genie back in the bottle, but you can probably sell that bottle for a lot of money if you put a picture of your feet on it.

So, where does this leave us? I think the only way forward is to accept that the Trad Wife was never about the lifestyle—it was about the brand. And the ConservaSkank is just the next, more profitable iteration of that brand. We can’t reverse the pipeline, but maybe we can learn from it. Maybe the real lesson here is that all online influencers are just professional liars, and we’re all just a bunch of suckers for watching them, myself included.

Maybe I should learn from this and stop trying to be an influencer, like, at all. What would that look like, I wonder? Ugh–Thinking is so hard! Back to scrolling through these pictures of former tradwives who banged Andrew Tate or his slightly uglier brother Tristan Tate, I guess.