1. Heather Brooke Armstrong was an American blogger and internet personality from Salt Lake City, Utah, who began writing under the pseudonym Dooce.
29 Facts About Heather Armstrong
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Heather Armstrong was raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Heather Armstrong majored in English at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
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Heather Armstrong began having doubts about the Church and experiencing bouts of depression while a student in predominantly Mormon Utah.
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Heather Armstrong later returned to Salt Lake City to work as a consultant and designer.
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Heather Armstrong started her blog in 2001, and it cost Armstrong her job the following year after her coworkers discovered she had been writing about them.
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Heather Armstrong appeared on Oprah and was featured by Forbes magazine among 30 honorees on its list of "The Most Influential Women In Media" for 2009.
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Heather Armstrong wrote extensively and humorously of her struggle with depression, hospitalization for mental health, pregnancies, parenthood, and experiences with the LDS Church.
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Heather Armstrong had called the LDS-associated Brigham Young University one of the worst places that exists and said that she left the Church the day after she graduated since her diploma was withheld over a $20 unpaid parking ticket that she had incurred after being unable to find a legal parking spot for a mandatory church service.
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In 2004, Heather Armstrong accepted text advertisements on her website for the first time, a decision that was controversial among her readership.
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In 2009, Heather Armstrong again received mass media attention for using Twitter to get her washing machine fixed.
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Heather Armstrong appeared on Oprah and, along with Oprah herself, was included in Forbes list of the 30 Most Influential Women in Media.
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Heather Armstrong introduced this new section, the Dooce Community, by posting an entry on the main dooce.
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The mostly female readers of those forums second-guessed Heather Armstrong's parenting decisions and suggested she did not appreciate how privileged she was.
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Heather Armstrong responded by posting hate mail she received from the readers of those sites on a separate page, which she later took down, called "Monetizing the Hate"; Jon joked in 2011 that the traffic from the hate sites had been better for the family business than the birth of their second child two years earlier.
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In 2002, Heather Armstrong ignited a fierce debate about privacy issues when she was allegedly fired from her job as a web designer and graphic artist because she had written satirical accounts of her experiences at a dot-com startup on her personal blog, dooce.
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In late 2005, Heather Armstrong entered into negotiations with Kensington Books to publish two books, one of which was to be a memoir of early parenthood.
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The negotiations broke down in May 2006, and Kensington sued to force Heather Armstrong to fulfill the terms of the unsigned contract.
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In October 2006 both parties agreed to a settlement that allowed Heather Armstrong to seek another publisher.
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Heather Armstrong was a music columnist and consultant for Alpha Mom.
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Heather Armstrong was a panelist for the online video series Momversation.
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In 2004, after the couple's first child Leta Elise was born, Heather Armstrong began devoting much of her blog to parenting, becoming one of the first, as well as most popular, mommybloggers.
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Heather Armstrong posted to Dooce explaining why, while Jon posted on his blog, Blurbomat.
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At the time the announcement came as a surprise since Heather Armstrong had never written about any marital difficulties, and had often written positively of her husband's support for her during her struggles with the children and her depression.
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Jon moved to New York City with a new girlfriend, Liz Gumbinner; the Heather Armstrong children spent the summer with him.
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In 2015, Heather Armstrong announced that she would be taking a step back from blogging to focus on speaking and consulting work.
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Depression returned and in 2017, Heather Armstrong said she felt like "a heap of nothingness" and could not go on living.
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Heather Armstrong continued to write sponsored content, getting affiliate marketing revenue from Stitch Fix and Amazon, and maintained an Instagram feed in addition to her blog.
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Heather Armstrong did not post any pictures or anecdotes about her children without their approval.