Dooce /Heather Armstrong

[Anonymous]

I’ve been very critical of Alice and GOMI here and I liked Armstrong writing back in the day but was never a member of her website tbh. My criticism isn’t coming from a place of hurt. I just think the extreme hate and speculation and lies that are encouraged on GOMI help no one and actually hurt. I’m not saying it’s responsible for this suicide, but did all this weird invective contribute to her problems at times? It’s so personal! Why would you think it wouldn’t?

GOMI would post pictures of bloggers husbands and speculate from the pics that they were gay — like dozens of comments under one pic. Wholly obscene and personal comments were allowed even when flagged. Who is this helping? What is it contributing, exactly?

When Dooce created her Monitizing the Hate website where she made money by reposting some of the absolutely batsh&t mean comments that were sent to her and got ad revenue off them, I called it a masterful jujitsu mindf@ck. GOMI hated it, of course.

Now Alice, who over the years wrote LITERALLY THOUSANDS of posts and comments criticizing Armstrong’s writing, life, appearance, parenting, blog, marriage, etc, has posted about dooce’s suicide and is making ad revenue off those page views. That’s a mindf@ck too, in its own way — to make money from the death of your nemesis. Not really masterful, more like sad. I’m sure no one over at GOMI is saying this. Or if they are, their comments are getting deleted.

Dooce is super problematic, but I thought she was a genuinely good writer, and I’ll take her over GOMI any day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been very critical of Alice and GOMI here and I liked Armstrong writing back in the day but was never a member of her website tbh. My criticism isn’t coming from a place of hurt. I just think the extreme hate and speculation and lies that are encouraged on GOMI help no one and actually hurt. I’m not saying it’s responsible for this suicide, but did all this weird invective contribute to her problems at times? It’s so personal! Why would you think it wouldn’t?

GOMI would post pictures of bloggers husbands and speculate from the pics that they were gay — like dozens of comments under one pic. Wholly obscene and personal comments were allowed even when flagged. Who is this helping? What is it contributing, exactly?

When Dooce created her Monitizing the Hate website where she made money by reposting some of the absolutely batsh&t mean comments that were sent to her and got ad revenue off them, I called it a masterful jujitsu mindf@ck. GOMI hated it, of course.

Now Alice, who over the years wrote LITERALLY THOUSANDS of posts and comments criticizing Armstrong’s writing, life, appearance, parenting, blog, marriage, etc, has posted about dooce’s suicide and is making ad revenue off those page views. That’s a mindf@ck too, in its own way — to make money from the death of your nemesis. Not really masterful, more like sad. I’m sure no one over at GOMI is saying this. Or if they are, their comments are getting deleted.

Dooce is super problematic, but I thought she was a genuinely good writer, and I’ll take her over GOMI any day.

Yes to all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So on top of all the time spent here, you all really spend a lot of time reading poorly written half truths about women’s lives. I cannot believe how seriously people take bloggers like this. I can’t believe it is therapeutic or helpful in any way.

What she did wasn’t really writing, it was preening. I’m so sorry she passed. However, and her lunatic fans will freak — none of her shtick would have worked but for her initial happy life, thinness, prettiness. The writing was never there, she is not Mary Carr or Leslie Jamison. It always required pictures and cool-girl blasé bullshit balanced with meltdowns. It was always stupid and squawking and without much to it, all hat and no cattle. But it gave a lot of ugly comfort to some women, as they were less divorced. Less f’ed up. Less drunk. Less scrutinized. And so forth. It was always gross, but it netted Armstrong a lot of money. I wish she’d found some medication and therapeutic plan that actually worked for her. I don’t actually think she’s more gifted than the banal, stupid Jo from Cup of Jo. But Jo was luckier.

You are the judge of what constitutes great literature? This made me laugh.

Before yesterday, I was vaguely aware of this woman’s existence, but had never read anything she had written. Now I have, I can say that the impact of her mental illness is clear is clear, but she is a far more naturally talented writer than you will ever be, and definitely a better human being.

I have been scanning this thread here and there, amazed at the people who continue to hold this blogger up as a literary hero. How can you know about her tirades against her own daughter, after sharing their entire life for the world to dissect, and then come here defending her as a better "human being" then anybody? There was a poster above who claimed those of us who don't adore her and lack empathy for this woman who raised her children while addicted to meth must "not be very bright." I cannot fathom how low intelligence you all, who cannot understand what was wrong not just with "Dooce," but with the entire culture of "mommy bloggers," must actually be.

These fans had and will apparently forever have intense parasocial relationships with that generation of bloggers. Mess.

DP. I haven't read Dooce in maybe 10 years. I am highly opposed to affairs, and I have a nonbinary kid and I think Heather's parenting in that regard was BAD. I just hate a website that exists solely to trash other people particularly when it is a widely-known fact that the people in question have a mental illness and a history of suicidal ideation. It is really sad that as a society we make so many excuses for treating others poorly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So on top of all the time spent here, you all really spend a lot of time reading poorly written half truths about women’s lives. I cannot believe how seriously people take bloggers like this. I can’t believe it is therapeutic or helpful in any way.

What she did wasn’t really writing, it was preening. I’m so sorry she passed. However, and her lunatic fans will freak — none of her shtick would have worked but for her initial happy life, thinness, prettiness. The writing was never there, she is not Mary Carr or Leslie Jamison. It always required pictures and cool-girl blasé bullshit balanced with meltdowns. It was always stupid and squawking and without much to it, all hat and no cattle. But it gave a lot of ugly comfort to some women, as they were less divorced. Less f’ed up. Less drunk. Less scrutinized. And so forth. It was always gross, but it netted Armstrong a lot of money. I wish she’d found some medication and therapeutic plan that actually worked for her. I don’t actually think she’s more gifted than the banal, stupid Jo from Cup of Jo. But Jo was luckier.

Exactly. But Jo also made her own luck!!! She works on her mental health, controls her drinking, writes openly but is not overexposed. Joanna has struck a really good balance and is running a business where the product is women’s interest in each other, not just in HER.

Heather was a prisoner of her attachment to her own physical attractiveness, her wit, her counterculture iconoclast vibe. A mentally ill narcissist who wrought fury and hellfire on her own ex husband, partner and daughters.

What someone else wrote is true. Dooce was a shallow, sick addict who preened for attention, who virtually gagged for it and lived and died for it. She was a grotesque example of the worst of influencer culture and to dislike her is not to be a GOMI troll, it’s to be an adult with one’s own opinion. Quit bringing Alice and GOMI into it! Your obsession with GOMI says more about YOU than GOMI itself. Alice is NOT responsible for these narcissists that overexpose their lives for likes and affiliate link $$!!!

Ok, Alice. You can head back to your own corner of the internets now.

I'm a different poster who had never heard of GOMI, but the PP is dead on about this Dooce. Why do so many posters here defend these narcissistic, drug-addicted, dilettantes?

This is an ugly sentiment and it resonated with me. I don't know a great deal about dooce, so why should I feel anything at all, let alone relate to a negative sentiment about her? Upon reflection, I think it has to do with the narcissism and dilettante description, coupled with the fact that she was famous and, for a time anyway, successful. It feels like an affront to the sacrifices most people make in the name of stability and love for others; particularly as parents and spouses. We stay at home or take grind-it-out jobs, we don't flit from thing to thing, we make the world better for friends and loved ones -- at least in a small way, we don't chase long shot dreams, and our sacrifices generally don't get recognized, let alone rewarded. Meanwhile, here is a woman who seemingly did none of that -- at least not on a sustained basis; and she was showered with riches and attention.

This is a very jaundiced view of the situation; but I think it's what is going through my head when I feel myself tempted to nod at hostile descriptions of a woman I didn't know and could easily avoid reading or reading about.

A lot of self awareness here and I think one reason you see a big divide in reactions.

I don't envy Dooce's life at all, including her fame and the positive attention she received. I don't even envy her success as a writer even though I am a writer (who has a day job that pays the bills).

I admire her success in finding a writing voice that worked for what she wanted to share with the world, and I appreciate that she found a way to create her own venue for connecting with readers instead of going through traditional systems, most of which are set up to keep out people who are not already on the inside of the systems.

But I don't resent her or feel anger towards her because I can see she DID in fact make sacrifices for her success. She sacrificed her privacy, and her family's privacy, and she put herself in the way of people eager to tear down people like herself. Why would I envy that? I have intentionally not made those choices.

I also can see that she had mental illness that was made much worse by those choices, and I have enough empathy to understand that she may not have understood how bad those impacts would be, or may have struggled to make better choices. I have people in my own family who have addiction issues and struggle with these choices. I work hard not to judge. I know it's hard. I don't know why it's easier for me to make those healthy choices and harder for them. I wish I could do something to help them make the healthy choices. But I can't. This is life. It's one of the hard truths of life that everyone must make these decisions for themselves, for better and sometimes, for worse.

So I don't get the vitriol. Her story is complicated and it has some great things (her writing helped and resonated with a lot of people who had never had access to her kind of truth-telling about life before) and some sad and disappointing things (her addiction issues, her inability to preserve her children's privacy, her mental health challenges that she never found a way to overcome). Why not recognize the good, recognize the bad, remember that no human being is perfect and wish her family the very best in their grief?

Railing against her and criticizing anyone who saw good in her seems like it's own kind of unhealthy choice, IMO.

I am one of the PPs who is being intepreted as "railing against her." But to be clear, I think she was a very big mess of a person who did great harm to her children, but can understand that seeningly she had no control over herself. Who I find abhorent is her audience. I consider them all to be like those who slow down on the highway to see the aftermath of a fatal car crash. By reading her, they did nothing but enable her behavior and put her and her family at more risk. I had never heard of her before this thread, but I cannot imagine spending time reading such a train wreck of a life just so I could feel better about mine. Though, yes, I disparage Dooce, I find her readers to be despicable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So on top of all the time spent here, you all really spend a lot of time reading poorly written half truths about women’s lives. I cannot believe how seriously people take bloggers like this. I can’t believe it is therapeutic or helpful in any way.

What she did wasn’t really writing, it was preening. I’m so sorry she passed. However, and her lunatic fans will freak — none of her shtick would have worked but for her initial happy life, thinness, prettiness. The writing was never there, she is not Mary Carr or Leslie Jamison. It always required pictures and cool-girl blasé bullshit balanced with meltdowns. It was always stupid and squawking and without much to it, all hat and no cattle. But it gave a lot of ugly comfort to some women, as they were less divorced. Less f’ed up. Less drunk. Less scrutinized. And so forth. It was always gross, but it netted Armstrong a lot of money. I wish she’d found some medication and therapeutic plan that actually worked for her. I don’t actually think she’s more gifted than the banal, stupid Jo from Cup of Jo. But Jo was luckier.

Exactly. But Jo also made her own luck!!! She works on her mental health, controls her drinking, writes openly but is not overexposed. Joanna has struck a really good balance and is running a business where the product is women’s interest in each other, not just in HER.

Heather was a prisoner of her attachment to her own physical attractiveness, her wit, her counterculture iconoclast vibe. A mentally ill narcissist who wrought fury and hellfire on her own ex husband, partner and daughters.

What someone else wrote is true. Dooce was a shallow, sick addict who preened for attention, who virtually gagged for it and lived and died for it. She was a grotesque example of the worst of influencer culture and to dislike her is not to be a GOMI troll, it’s to be an adult with one’s own opinion. Quit bringing Alice and GOMI into it! Your obsession with GOMI says more about YOU than GOMI itself. Alice is NOT responsible for these narcissists that overexpose their lives for likes and affiliate link $$!!!

Ok, Alice. You can head back to your own corner of the internets now.

I'm a different poster who had never heard of GOMI, but the PP is dead on about this Dooce. Why do so many posters here defend these narcissistic, drug-addicted, dilettantes?

This is an ugly sentiment and it resonated with me. I don't know a great deal about dooce, so why should I feel anything at all, let alone relate to a negative sentiment about her? Upon reflection, I think it has to do with the narcissism and dilettante description, coupled with the fact that she was famous and, for a time anyway, successful. It feels like an affront to the sacrifices most people make in the name of stability and love for others; particularly as parents and spouses. We stay at home or take grind-it-out jobs, we don't flit from thing to thing, we make the world better for friends and loved ones -- at least in a small way, we don't chase long shot dreams, and our sacrifices generally don't get recognized, let alone rewarded. Meanwhile, here is a woman who seemingly did none of that -- at least not on a sustained basis; and she was showered with riches and attention.

This is a very jaundiced view of the situation; but I think it's what is going through my head when I feel myself tempted to nod at hostile descriptions of a woman I didn't know and could easily avoid reading or reading about.

A lot of self awareness here and I think one reason you see a big divide in reactions.

I don't envy Dooce's life at all, including her fame and the positive attention she received. I don't even envy her success as a writer even though I am a writer (who has a day job that pays the bills).

I admire her success in finding a writing voice that worked for what she wanted to share with the world, and I appreciate that she found a way to create her own venue for connecting with readers instead of going through traditional systems, most of which are set up to keep out people who are not already on the inside of the systems.

But I don't resent her or feel anger towards her because I can see she DID in fact make sacrifices for her success. She sacrificed her privacy, and her family's privacy, and she put herself in the way of people eager to tear down people like herself. Why would I envy that? I have intentionally not made those choices.

I also can see that she had mental illness that was made much worse by those choices, and I have enough empathy to understand that she may not have understood how bad those impacts would be, or may have struggled to make better choices. I have people in my own family who have addiction issues and struggle with these choices. I work hard not to judge. I know it's hard. I don't know why it's easier for me to make those healthy choices and harder for them. I wish I could do something to help them make the healthy choices. But I can't. This is life. It's one of the hard truths of life that everyone must make these decisions for themselves, for better and sometimes, for worse.

So I don't get the vitriol. Her story is complicated and it has some great things (her writing helped and resonated with a lot of people who had never had access to her kind of truth-telling about life before) and some sad and disappointing things (her addiction issues, her inability to preserve her children's privacy, her mental health challenges that she never found a way to overcome). Why not recognize the good, recognize the bad, remember that no human being is perfect and wish her family the very best in their grief?

Railing against her and criticizing anyone who saw good in her seems like it's own kind of unhealthy choice, IMO.

I am one of the PPs who is being intepreted as "railing against her." But to be clear, I think she was a very big mess of a person who did great harm to her children, but can understand that seeningly she had no control over herself. Who I find abhorent is her audience. I consider them all to be like those who slow down on the highway to see the aftermath of a fatal car crash. By reading her, they did nothing but enable her behavior and put her and her family at more risk. I had never heard of her before this thread, but I cannot imagine spending time reading such a train wreck of a life just so I could feel better about mine. Though, yes, I disparage Dooce, I find her readers to be despicable.

You don’t understand the timeline. Dooce was not unhinged when her readership was really strong. The only objectionable behavior she participated in was putting cute photos of her kids online (which a lot of us did too) and putting spaghetti noodles on her dog’s nose (people were apparently pretty pissed at her for that). As far as my reading habits were concerned, she was in the same category as Ree Drummond and Karen Waldrond. Later, her readership dropped and her behavior and writing became more erratic. She stepped away almost entirely for a while, and now we are here. I don’t think that you can say that her readers enabled her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So on top of all the time spent here, you all really spend a lot of time reading poorly written half truths about women’s lives. I cannot believe how seriously people take bloggers like this. I can’t believe it is therapeutic or helpful in any way.

What she did wasn’t really writing, it was preening. I’m so sorry she passed. However, and her lunatic fans will freak — none of her shtick would have worked but for her initial happy life, thinness, prettiness. The writing was never there, she is not Mary Carr or Leslie Jamison. It always required pictures and cool-girl blasé bullshit balanced with meltdowns. It was always stupid and squawking and without much to it, all hat and no cattle. But it gave a lot of ugly comfort to some women, as they were less divorced. Less f’ed up. Less drunk. Less scrutinized. And so forth. It was always gross, but it netted Armstrong a lot of money. I wish she’d found some medication and therapeutic plan that actually worked for her. I don’t actually think she’s more gifted than the banal, stupid Jo from Cup of Jo. But Jo was luckier.

Exactly. But Jo also made her own luck!!! She works on her mental health, controls her drinking, writes openly but is not overexposed. Joanna has struck a really good balance and is running a business where the product is women’s interest in each other, not just in HER.

Heather was a prisoner of her attachment to her own physical attractiveness, her wit, her counterculture iconoclast vibe. A mentally ill narcissist who wrought fury and hellfire on her own ex husband, partner and daughters.

What someone else wrote is true. Dooce was a shallow, sick addict who preened for attention, who virtually gagged for it and lived and died for it. She was a grotesque example of the worst of influencer culture and to dislike her is not to be a GOMI troll, it’s to be an adult with one’s own opinion. Quit bringing Alice and GOMI into it! Your obsession with GOMI says more about YOU than GOMI itself. Alice is NOT responsible for these narcissists that overexpose their lives for likes and affiliate link $$!!!

Ok, Alice. You can head back to your own corner of the internets now.

I'm a different poster who had never heard of GOMI, but the PP is dead on about this Dooce. Why do so many posters here defend these narcissistic, drug-addicted, dilettantes?

This is an ugly sentiment and it resonated with me. I don't know a great deal about dooce, so why should I feel anything at all, let alone relate to a negative sentiment about her? Upon reflection, I think it has to do with the narcissism and dilettante description, coupled with the fact that she was famous and, for a time anyway, successful. It feels like an affront to the sacrifices most people make in the name of stability and love for others; particularly as parents and spouses. We stay at home or take grind-it-out jobs, we don't flit from thing to thing, we make the world better for friends and loved ones -- at least in a small way, we don't chase long shot dreams, and our sacrifices generally don't get recognized, let alone rewarded. Meanwhile, here is a woman who seemingly did none of that -- at least not on a sustained basis; and she was showered with riches and attention.

This is a very jaundiced view of the situation; but I think it's what is going through my head when I feel myself tempted to nod at hostile descriptions of a woman I didn't know and could easily avoid reading or reading about.

A lot of self awareness here and I think one reason you see a big divide in reactions.

I don't envy Dooce's life at all, including her fame and the positive attention she received. I don't even envy her success as a writer even though I am a writer (who has a day job that pays the bills).

I admire her success in finding a writing voice that worked for what she wanted to share with the world, and I appreciate that she found a way to create her own venue for connecting with readers instead of going through traditional systems, most of which are set up to keep out people who are not already on the inside of the systems.

But I don't resent her or feel anger towards her because I can see she DID in fact make sacrifices for her success. She sacrificed her privacy, and her family's privacy, and she put herself in the way of people eager to tear down people like herself. Why would I envy that? I have intentionally not made those choices.

I also can see that she had mental illness that was made much worse by those choices, and I have enough empathy to understand that she may not have understood how bad those impacts would be, or may have struggled to make better choices. I have people in my own family who have addiction issues and struggle with these choices. I work hard not to judge. I know it's hard. I don't know why it's easier for me to make those healthy choices and harder for them. I wish I could do something to help them make the healthy choices. But I can't. This is life. It's one of the hard truths of life that everyone must make these decisions for themselves, for better and sometimes, for worse.

So I don't get the vitriol. Her story is complicated and it has some great things (her writing helped and resonated with a lot of people who had never had access to her kind of truth-telling about life before) and some sad and disappointing things (her addiction issues, her inability to preserve her children's privacy, her mental health challenges that she never found a way to overcome). Why not recognize the good, recognize the bad, remember that no human being is perfect and wish her family the very best in their grief?

Railing against her and criticizing anyone who saw good in her seems like it's own kind of unhealthy choice, IMO.

I am one of the PPs who is being intepreted as "railing against her." But to be clear, I think she was a very big mess of a person who did great harm to her children, but can understand that seeningly she had no control over herself. Who I find abhorent is her audience. I consider them all to be like those who slow down on the highway to see the aftermath of a fatal car crash. By reading her, they did nothing but enable her behavior and put her and her family at more risk. I had never heard of her before this thread, but I cannot imagine spending time reading such a train wreck of a life just so I could feel better about mine. Though, yes, I disparage Dooce, I find her readers to be despicable.

You don’t understand the timeline. Dooce was not unhinged when her readership was really strong. The only objectionable behavior she participated in was putting cute photos of her kids online (which a lot of us did too) and putting spaghetti noodles on her dog’s nose (people were apparently pretty pissed at her for that). As far as my reading habits were concerned, she was in the same category as Ree Drummond and Karen Waldrond. Later, her readership dropped and her behavior and writing became more erratic. She stepped away almost entirely for a while, and now we are here. I don’t think that you can say that her readers enabled her. [/quote

Well, she blogged for a living, how did they not? And most people come on here with their admiration say it was because she helped them understand how imperfect it all is. They loved her swearing and her imperfect life. Sounds to me like she overshared from the very beginning and readers lapped it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I feel no shame, because I bear no responsibility. Firstly, we're all assuming Heather killed herself. For all we know, she got hit by a car or something. Secondly, adults are responsible for themselves. Heather had health insurance, family and friends - she had access to all the resources for blocking any site that talked about her online. Again, if you don't want to read things about yourself, you make a choice to avoid them.

With regard to the underlined:

Of course you don't.
Heartless, apathetic people rarely do.

I seriously hope you don't have children, because one day, your child may come home and tell you that other girls are posting lies about her on Snapchat & Instagram, and she's hysterical crying because EVERYONE she knows is gossiping & laughing at her.

Are you going to tell your daughter to just delete Snapchat, block everyone in her school, and avoid all of the whispers, pointing and taunts that she hears in the hallways -- because avoiding them is her choice?

I wonder if you'd be this heartless & direct to your own child?

If your answer is "Yes, I would be", then you're a calous, compasionless, pitiful excuse for a parent.

If the answer is "No, of course I wouldn't" then you're a pathetic, inauthentic hypocrite.

Either way, you seem to have a deeply flawed character defect.

You know what, don’t get me started on all the parents that allow their kids on Snapchat, group chats, tik tok, and social media in general. It is a cesspool and I would never let my children on it no matter what. If you open the door to that you deserve whatever comes in. Protect your kids, protect your home. Hold on to your sanity.

You must still have children of an age you get to control.

You would be so smug in a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I feel no shame, because I bear no responsibility. Firstly, we're all assuming Heather killed herself. For all we know, she got hit by a car or something. Secondly, adults are responsible for themselves. Heather had health insurance, family and friends - she had access to all the resources for blocking any site that talked about her online. Again, if you don't want to read things about yourself, you make a choice to avoid them.

With regard to the underlined:

Of course you don't.
Heartless, apathetic people rarely do.

I seriously hope you don't have children, because one day, your child may come home and tell you that other girls are posting lies about her on Snapchat & Instagram, and she's hysterical crying because EVERYONE she knows is gossiping & laughing at her.

Are you going to tell your daughter to just delete Snapchat, block everyone in her school, and avoid all of the whispers, pointing and taunts that she hears in the hallways -- because avoiding them is her choice?

I wonder if you'd be this heartless & direct to your own child?

If your answer is "Yes, I would be", then you're a calous, compasionless, pitiful excuse for a parent.

If the answer is "No, of course I wouldn't" then you're a pathetic, inauthentic hypocrite.

Either way, you seem to have a deeply flawed character defect.

You know what, don’t get me started on all the parents that allow their kids on Snapchat, group chats, tik tok, and social media in general. It is a cesspool and I would never let my children on it no matter what. If you open the door to that you deserve whatever comes in. Protect your kids, protect your home. Hold on to your sanity.

You must still have children of an age you get to control.

You would be so smug in a few years.

Yes yes, you’re so brave in your imperfections. Life is so hashtag messy. Give it a rest.

[Anonymous]

Exactly. Your children you charming and smugly admit you can’t control are the same ones you’re going to be fishing out of an upstairs bathtub, administering Narcan to or having their stomachs pumped someday.
Raising my kids right and keeping an eye on them, being sure they are guided to understand how to make good choices until the actually exhibit good choice making is not smug control. It’s what parenting is. I will not throw my hands up and let the beasts in!

[Anonymous]

Dave Hollis, DOOCE, Glennon Doyle - these people who overshare for money seem to be deeply damaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So on top of all the time spent here, you all really spend a lot of time reading poorly written half truths about women’s lives. I cannot believe how seriously people take bloggers like this. I can’t believe it is therapeutic or helpful in any way.

What she did wasn’t really writing, it was preening. I’m so sorry she passed. However, and her lunatic fans will freak — none of her shtick would have worked but for her initial happy life, thinness, prettiness. The writing was never there, she is not Mary Carr or Leslie Jamison. It always required pictures and cool-girl blasé bullshit balanced with meltdowns. It was always stupid and squawking and without much to it, all hat and no cattle. But it gave a lot of ugly comfort to some women, as they were less divorced. Less f’ed up. Less drunk. Less scrutinized. And so forth. It was always gross, but it netted Armstrong a lot of money. I wish she’d found some medication and therapeutic plan that actually worked for her. I don’t actually think she’s more gifted than the banal, stupid Jo from Cup of Jo. But Jo was luckier.

Exactly. But Jo also made her own luck!!! She works on her mental health, controls her drinking, writes openly but is not overexposed. Joanna has struck a really good balance and is running a business where the product is women’s interest in each other, not just in HER.

Heather was a prisoner of her attachment to her own physical attractiveness, her wit, her counterculture iconoclast vibe. A mentally ill narcissist who wrought fury and hellfire on her own ex husband, partner and daughters.

What someone else wrote is true. Dooce was a shallow, sick addict who preened for attention, who virtually gagged for it and lived and died for it. She was a grotesque example of the worst of influencer culture and to dislike her is not to be a GOMI troll, it’s to be an adult with one’s own opinion. Quit bringing Alice and GOMI into it! Your obsession with GOMI says more about YOU than GOMI itself. Alice is NOT responsible for these narcissists that overexpose their lives for likes and affiliate link $$!!!

Ok, Alice. You can head back to your own corner of the internets now.

I'm a different poster who had never heard of GOMI, but the PP is dead on about this Dooce. Why do so many posters here defend these narcissistic, drug-addicted, dilettantes?

This is an ugly sentiment and it resonated with me. I don't know a great deal about dooce, so why should I feel anything at all, let alone relate to a negative sentiment about her? Upon reflection, I think it has to do with the narcissism and dilettante description, coupled with the fact that she was famous and, for a time anyway, successful. It feels like an affront to the sacrifices most people make in the name of stability and love for others; particularly as parents and spouses. We stay at home or take grind-it-out jobs, we don't flit from thing to thing, we make the world better for friends and loved ones -- at least in a small way, we don't chase long shot dreams, and our sacrifices generally don't get recognized, let alone rewarded. Meanwhile, here is a woman who seemingly did none of that -- at least not on a sustained basis; and she was showered with riches and attention.

This is a very jaundiced view of the situation; but I think it's what is going through my head when I feel myself tempted to nod at hostile descriptions of a woman I didn't know and could easily avoid reading or reading about.

A lot of self awareness here and I think one reason you see a big divide in reactions.

I don't envy Dooce's life at all, including her fame and the positive attention she received. I don't even envy her success as a writer even though I am a writer (who has a day job that pays the bills).

I admire her success in finding a writing voice that worked for what she wanted to share with the world, and I appreciate that she found a way to create her own venue for connecting with readers instead of going through traditional systems, most of which are set up to keep out people who are not already on the inside of the systems.

But I don't resent her or feel anger towards her because I can see she DID in fact make sacrifices for her success. She sacrificed her privacy, and her family's privacy, and she put herself in the way of people eager to tear down people like herself. Why would I envy that? I have intentionally not made those choices.

I also can see that she had mental illness that was made much worse by those choices, and I have enough empathy to understand that she may not have understood how bad those impacts would be, or may have struggled to make better choices. I have people in my own family who have addiction issues and struggle with these choices. I work hard not to judge. I know it's hard. I don't know why it's easier for me to make those healthy choices and harder for them. I wish I could do something to help them make the healthy choices. But I can't. This is life. It's one of the hard truths of life that everyone must make these decisions for themselves, for better and sometimes, for worse.

So I don't get the vitriol. Her story is complicated and it has some great things (her writing helped and resonated with a lot of people who had never had access to her kind of truth-telling about life before) and some sad and disappointing things (her addiction issues, her inability to preserve her children's privacy, her mental health challenges that she never found a way to overcome). Why not recognize the good, recognize the bad, remember that no human being is perfect and wish her family the very best in their grief?

Railing against her and criticizing anyone who saw good in her seems like it's own kind of unhealthy choice, IMO.

This is really nuanced and fair.

I still think people blaming internet commentators for Heather’s suffering, to say nothing of her passing, are as or more awful as anyone else in this. And I’ve never posted a thing about her on GOMI or anywhere before her death. It’s just so dishonest to try and lay blame that way IMO.

Maybe, but the people who are saying that are speaking from a place of grief. If you read and were really affected positively by Dooce's writing, and especially if you identified with her personally, then it is pretty rational as you work through your grief to lash out at people that you think treated her unkindly or unfairly. Maybe give those people some room to work through that given that Dooce died less than a week ago?

Also, as someone who doesn't fall into that category, even I can see that some of the stuff that was written about Dooce and others on GOMI were cheap and unfair. I even agree with the arguments that the confessional nature of blogs like Dooce's, and her use of her children in her work, was unethical and irresponsible. But I think a lot of the criticism on GOMI and other places totally ceded the high ground by making their attacks personal and vicious (in itself unethical, IMO). GOMI is disingenuous in that it claims to hate people like Dooce, but in reality GOMI is a parasite of the confessional/no-boundaries era of blogging. GOMI hasn't done much good and it's done a lot of harm. I think it's okay to discuss that when looking at the legacy (both good and bad) of Dooce and that era of blogging.

I don’t agree with the “speaking from grief” part — again, I just intensely dislike GOMI — but I one hundred percent agree with the second paragraph of this comment. To me, GOMI is a bunch of useless bottom-feeders spreading hate and sending nothing positive or worthwhile out into the world. I enjoy the mockery of “it’s motherf&cking gourd season” as much as the next person, but the mean-spirited, vindictive, petty, paranoid and often untethered-to-reality speculation and insulting nonsense that gets posted over there to make ad money for the owner benefits no one except the owner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. Your children you charming and smugly admit you can’t control are the same ones you’re going to be fishing out of an upstairs bathtub, administering Narcan to or having their stomachs pumped someday.
Raising my kids right and keeping an eye on them, being sure they are guided to understand how to make good choices until the actually exhibit good choice making is not smug control. It’s what parenting is. I will not throw my hands up and let the beasts in!

As an adolescent therapist, I feel like you’re inviting the universe to test you. Children of protective, good parents also can struggle a lot. And you as the parent may be the last to know.

[Anonymous]

I hope she and Chuck are reunited and she spends today balancing things on his head. RIP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope she and Chuck are reunited and she spends today balancing things on his head. RIP.

And Coco!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. Your children you charming and smugly admit you can’t control are the same ones you’re going to be fishing out of an upstairs bathtub, administering Narcan to or having their stomachs pumped someday.
Raising my kids right and keeping an eye on them, being sure they are guided to understand how to make good choices until the actually exhibit good choice making is not smug control. It’s what parenting is. I will not throw my hands up and let the beasts in!

As an adolescent therapist, I feel like you’re inviting the universe to test you. Children of protective, good parents also can struggle a lot. And you as the parent may be the last to know.

Yes I totally get that too! But I also think we need to try our best and not shame parents who are out there trying, yes like myself. Another truth is that just giving kids so much access to social media does cause harm and bring along other issues so my hopes that I’m able to fend that off and help keep some balance in our home lives should be supported, not derided.