"The Conservative Cosmo"
Evie and an American mission to save the world
Recently, my socials look like that of a small c conservative, republican woman with a particular obsession for infinity scarves. Do not fear dear reader- just because I’m enjoying the resurgence of country music in pop does not mean I’ve abandoned my liberal principles, even if I do look great in a milkmaid dress. This is research.
The research in question? Evie, a women’s magazine which helps its readers ‘seek truth and find beauty… the kind that really matters’. Founded in 2019 by husband and wife duo Brittany and Gabriel Hugoboom, Evie has garnered thousands of online followers, a subscription service and a clothing line which features a ‘raw milkmaid’ sundress, ‘inspired by the hardworking dairymaids of 18th century Europe’. Now, I can’t pretend to know exactly what the Hugobooms mean by the creation of a $189 dress as an ode to women who had a life expectancy of a cool 35 years of age, but I’m sure they meant well. Made with ‘100% feminine energy’, Evie’s clothing promises to realign its readers with a womanhood centred around family and a type of ideology entirely unlike ‘progressive women’s media that have made a generation of women more depressed, unhealthy and romantically unfulfilled than any other in modern history’. Who knows, as Gabriel quipped on X, its side effects might even ‘include an unplanned pregnancy’. Well fingers crossed eh.
Now I could take cheap shots at an expensive version of a dress which mimics an American Revolutionary’s wet dream, but that would be flippant. Let’s take the Hugobooms’ other female-centred product- 28. 28 is a menstrual-cycle based app backed by the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, an app which also happens to promote the sale of the aptly-named ‘Toxic Breakup’. This is a birth control ‘detox’ subscription which, among its other nebulous promises, guarantees a boost in libido and reduction in anxiety. It seeks to help recenter the female body and realign its natural fertility. Its backer Thiel is also an outspoken donor to the Trump administration who, in May 2016, was revealed by Forbes to have secretly funded law suits in an attempt to destroy Gawker Media, the parent company of feminist online site Jezebel. As such, Evie is clear in its aims- to ‘redress’ the legacy media's impact and to position their site as Brittany Hugoboom calls it, a ‘one-stop shop for femininity’.
Their most recent partnership with MASA chips plasters their Tik Tok pushing tortilla chips cooked in tallow, and includes a feature piece on founder Tan Man who advocates eating collagen as a method of tanning without sunscreen. With these partnerships, Evie has graduated from being the sole forum for femininity into to a branch of MAHA. Self-termed ‘crunchy moms’ stand behind RFK Jrs’ ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign. Indeed, Evie has produced several thought pieces, praising the rationale behind the ticket that made RFK Jr Health Secretary, including regret-pieces where women lament getting their Covid jab and claims that autism stems from vaccines. It seems that if RFK Jr is the promise to return the American body to a healthy, pre-big Pharma state of the 1950s, Evie is the marketplace.
This cocktail of ‘health-conscious’ living blends with articles calling for the return of ‘The Daddy’s Girl’ into a subscription service of $39 per annum. The price equivalent of a tank of gas in America today, Evie’s readers may present as a small cluster of women with disposable income, but its social media is free. Its Instagram, X and Tik Tok accounts curate a pastel hued promise of healthy, heterosexual bliss and with over 200k followers its reach is growing.
So, what is the real danger, should we really be concerned with the advocacy of a ‘health-conscious’ lifestyle? Or a traditional version of gender roles? In my opinion, no, not necessarily. Not when the science is correct or the opportunity to be a wife and mother is presented as on par with leading a different life. The real concern is that Evie and other American conservative forums present an under-utilised demographic’s data to an open market. 28 will be able to use your personal contact details and personal usage of an app that helps to ‘naturally regulate your cycle’ to track you.
Where does this data then go? In an apocalyptic version of Come Outside, it can go anywhere. Data can be bought by specific brokers, advertisers, lobby groups and political parties. GDPR legislation surrounding this new market is falling behind to in the UK to say the least and in the US there is not one single federal data law that comprehensively governs data sales. And in Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, Louisiana, Florida and Idaho, no comprehensive bills have been introduced as regards state privacy legislation. Evie Magazine is registered in Idaho.
Needless to say, when US women are deleting period trackers from their phones in fear that such data collected by the apps could be used against them in future criminal cases in states where abortion care is now illegal, Idaho now has a near-total ban on abortion, the potential is clear. Now, all apps and companies use and collect data. This is not a partisan issue. And given the amount of spam I receive, often pushing a new miracle weight loss pill 5 times a day in my junk file confirms that somewhere out there my email address is on a list. But when algorithms push viewers towards even more extreme ‘health-conscious’, often libertarian accounts the results are damming.
A recent study with the NIH concluded that it was likely that 1 in 5 Tik Tok videos concerning health aimed at young women contained medical misinformation. And when 18-29 year old women are the dominant user of Tik Tok in the United States and also a key demographic of Evie’s target audience, the responsibility this site has is enormous. If you cannot tell already, I do not agree with the publication’s stance on womanhood nor do I agree that sunscreen is bad for you. But this does not mean that others won’t either. Opinion is a slippery fish when it comes to freedom of speech, it is often challenging and disruptive and confronts your own deeply held beliefs and way of life. Good, it ought to. It means that freedom of speech is a hard-won thing and worth holding onto. We do not live in a monolithic society and nor should we. But when it endangers the wellbeing of others, especially when paid for, is when it must be challenged.
The US continues to have the highest rate of maternal deaths of any high-income nation, heart disease is the leading cause of death (don’t worry Evie has an article for that too) and the US health insurance market was valued in 2025 at 1.8 trillion USD. Health is expensive in the US, life is expensive and getting more so which makes the need for science-based fact all the more important.
Put simply, Evie is not a site for freedom, it is an enterprise in commodification which demands a right to express its views on medical misinformation and conspiracy theories under the fictive banner of the ‘truth’ ‘that really matters’.
Sources:
‘The Inside Story of Evie, the US Conservative Women’s Magazine with Big Ambitions, and Sex Tips for Wives’, The Irish Times, Katie JM Baker, March 2025
‘This Women's Mag is Like a Gen Z Cosmo for the Far Right’, Rolling Stone, EJ Dickson, May 2023