Dooce /Heather Armstrong

[Anonymous]

I started following Dooce when she was living in SF, then when she moved to LA and got fired. That's when she became really well-known. I never felt super comfortable reading her writing. By the time I started hanging out on GOMI in 2012, I had nothing left to say about Dooce, aside from the time she took a picture with a captured baby elephant in India. Bully never seemed like the right word for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.

GOMI did not kill Heather. Just because people write things on the internet about you doesn't mean you have to read them. I've never googled my own name, for example.

Seriously? It's probably a good idea to curate your web presence once in a while.

I have no web presence. My name is not on my company's website, my social media is not under my real name. I have two email addresses - one with my actual name and one that doesn't have identifying info and use the second one to make online accounts (with say, Amazon, or Netflix).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.

NP. I think it’s okay to be critical of parents making their living off of sharing every single private moment of their children’s lives on the internet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.

GOMI did not kill Heather. Just because people write things on the internet about you doesn't mean you have to read them. I've never googled my own name, for example.

You should in this age of identity theft and misinformation.

[Anonymous]

Ugh. What a shame. I always had mixed feelings about her recent writing and felt she has been off the rails for a few years now. But, wow, she was funny and raw for many years. Godspeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.

GOMI did not kill Heather. Just because people write things on the internet about you doesn't mean you have to read them. I've never googled my own name, for example.

Justifying the tormenting of a human being is shameful. Shame on you.

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.

You bear responsibility for saying things that are hurtful, whether anyone knew that it was you who said them or not. Anonymity on the internet doesn't mean it's not absolutely hurtful and toxic to have the attitude that you have. It just means that you don't have to be accountable for your behavior.

I've never said anything directly to her, or in her presence. I've never met or been in the same room as her. If she didn't want to read GOMI or Reddit, she didn't have to.

[Anonymous]

I enjoyed her writing and photography for its humor and honesty. Condolences to her daughters and family. RIP Heather, you are whole now.

[Anonymous]

Washington Post reports she dies by suicide

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/05/10/dooce-heather-armstrong-dead/46ba50f6-ef5b-11ed-b67d-a219ec5dfd30_story.html

[Anonymous]

Makes me think that Jeff should delete the Jen Hatmaker thread. We wouldn’t want to be a contributing factor should the same terrible fate befall Jen. It’s so sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I enjoyed her writing and photography for its humor and honesty. Condolences to her daughters and family. RIP Heather, you are whole now.

What does that mean? People who are alive are broken? Are pieces? Is this a religious saying of some sort?

[Anonymous]

Here's what her boyfriend is quoted as saying: Her boyfriend, Pete Ashdown, told the Associated Press she died by suicide. “She had a relapse recently and that’s what really spiraled her down. She was sober for over 18 months, then started to sneak back into it. And then in the last month she went full tilt,” Ashdown told AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.

NP. I think it’s okay to be critical of parents making their living off of sharing every single private moment of their children’s lives on the internet.

"Critical" is rather an understatement of what GOMI did with Dooce. And the level of hypocrisy in criticism coming from the writer at GOMI is ridiculous:
* she made fun of moms making asking their readers for money to read what they wrote, but she asked her own readers for money to read what she wrote.
* she made fun of moms for editing their comments to take out the negative stuff, but she edited her blog to take out the negative comments.
* GOMI went above and beyond by reading webmail her commenters would send to one another and would terminate people's memberships if they were overly critical of her in their messages to one another.

However you feel about discussion sites in general, in this day and age where we are better informed and know that we should do better by one another, I just don't see how you can defend reading and supporting GOMI. This straw in particular -- mocking someone mercilessly for years and then reporting on their death and thus profiting by it -- is a heavy one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I enjoyed her writing and photography for its humor and honesty. Condolences to her daughters and family. RIP Heather, you are whole now.

What does that mean? People who are alive are broken? Are pieces? Is this a religious saying of some sort?

Not PP, but to me it means that she is at peace, no longer struggling with whatever demons plagued her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.

GOMI did not kill Heather. Just because people write things on the internet about you doesn't mean you have to read them. I've never googled my own name, for example.

Justifying the tormenting of a human being is shameful. Shame on you.

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.

What kind of logic is this?? I'm allowed to say unbelievably sh!tty things about someone all the time, but it's OK because they may not read it and/or know it was me? This is what you consider ethical behavior?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.

GOMI did not kill Heather. Just because people write things on the internet about you doesn't mean you have to read them. I've never googled my own name, for example.

Justifying the tormenting of a human being is shameful. Shame on you.

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.

You bear responsibility for saying things that are hurtful, whether anyone knew that it was you who said them or not. Anonymity on the internet doesn't mean it's not absolutely hurtful and toxic to have the attitude that you have. It just means that you don't have to be accountable for your behavior.

I've never said anything directly to her, or in her presence. I've never met or been in the same room as her. If she didn't want to read GOMI or Reddit, she didn't have to.

Would you say it in front of her kids? Because you basically did, and I don't think it's reasonable for anything their age to have enough protective impulses to stay away from potentially hurtful information.