Dooce /Heather Armstrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel so bad for her younger kid. They are only 13 and now almost certainly going to be ripped from her home and end up... where? At least her older daughter is already away at college.

Her last post on her website is like a love letter to her older daughter posted when her partner confirms she was still really sober.

With her father, who is still very involved in their lives.

On the other side of the country and only sees them in the summer, no? Extremely hard for a 13 year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course GOMI didn't kill her. Alice just hounded her and mocked her endlessly. I'm sure that didn't contribute positively to her well being. And now Alice is posting about her death on GOMI, and essentially profiting off of it. And so the circle is complete.

1+. Of course GOMI & its ilk wasn't the primary or probably even a significant reason for her (alleged) suicide. But it is also ridiculous how quickly the extraordinary toxicity of internet culture is just waived off, e.g. "don't read it," "well you made your life public," "she's crazy anyway"... And then we wonder why everyone's (and esp. our kid's) mental health is flatlining?

+2 I will never understand why people think being outright cruel to somebody else, particularly somebody with a known history of suicidal ideations, is okay. It's not like they were just saying "I think it's inappropriate for somebody to profit off their child's stories," they were (and probably are) saying horrific things.

+3

There is a big difference between profiting by making your life public and profiting by being nasty about other people. That is the whole point of GOMI. It's disgusting.

Basic human nature man. People distributed pornographic pamphlets about Marie Antoinette at Versailles, people said Catherine the Great had sex with a horse. We are social beings and we are going to talk about each other.

[Anonymous]

Sad to hear this. Her girls are the same age as mine, I hope they are ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel so bad for her younger kid. They are only 13 and now almost certainly going to be ripped from her home and end up... where? At least her older daughter is already away at college.

Her last post on her website is like a love letter to her older daughter posted when her partner confirms she was still really sober.

With her father, who is still very involved in their lives.

On the other side of the country and only sees them in the summer, no? Extremely hard for a 13 year old.

How could you possibly know how involved he is or not? Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course GOMI didn't kill her. Alice just hounded her and mocked her endlessly. I'm sure that didn't contribute positively to her well being. And now Alice is posting about her death on GOMI, and essentially profiting off of it. And so the circle is complete.

1+. Of course GOMI & its ilk wasn't the primary or probably even a significant reason for her (alleged) suicide. But it is also ridiculous how quickly the extraordinary toxicity of internet culture is just waived off, e.g. "don't read it," "well you made your life public," "she's crazy anyway"... And then we wonder why everyone's (and esp. our kid's) mental health is flatlining?

+2 I will never understand why people think being outright cruel to somebody else, particularly somebody with a known history of suicidal ideations, is okay. It's not like they were just saying "I think it's inappropriate for somebody to profit off their child's stories," they were (and probably are) saying horrific things.

+3

There is a big difference between profiting by making your life public and profiting by being nasty about other people. That is the whole point of GOMI. It's disgusting.

Basic human nature man. People distributed pornographic pamphlets about Marie Antoinette at Versailles, people said Catherine the Great had sex with a horse. We are social beings and we are going to talk about each other.

What's the implication of this? Surely the fact that doing something is in our basic human nature doesn't automatically mean it's okay to do, right? And isn't there a huge difference between "talking about each other" and building a platform for people to congregate specifically for the purpose of anonymously spewing vitriol?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel so bad for her younger kid. They are only 13 and now almost certainly going to be ripped from her home and end up... where? At least her older daughter is already away at college.

Her last post on her website is like a love letter to her older daughter posted when her partner confirms she was still really sober.

With her father, who is still very involved in their lives.

On the other side of the country and only sees them in the summer, no? Extremely hard for a 13 year old.

How could you possibly know how involved he is or not? Yikes.

Dooce shared a lot...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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?

I never said unbelievably shitty things about Heather. And if I did, she was being unbelievably shitty. I don't subscribe to the concept that you have to put anyone whose died on a pedestal. If she did really shitty things, yeah I probably talked about it. If she chose to read that, that's on her. You have to own what you do and say. She said TONS of very personal stuff about her daughters that had to be embarrassing for them. If I talked about how crappy that was of her to do, I'm okay with that.

You can also refuse to "put anyone whose died on a pedestal" while also not going out of your way to say nasty things about them, on the day their death is announced. You could choose to NOT say nasty things.

That is where your problem with ethics is. If this was a person you knew and children you knew, would you make the same comments, with your name attached to them? I doubt it. If the answer is yes, you are just a bad person. If the answer is no, you are a hypocrite. But fine! You feel good about it. Have a great Wednesday. RIP Dooce.

Today's NOT the day that she died though. She died yesterday. And I haven't said anything nasty about Heather in this thread. If Heather were a person I knew, I'd have distanced myself from her over a decade ago, because I disagree(d) with so much of how she behaved.

I said the day her death was ANNOUNCED, not the day she died, but that's a pretty weird thing to hang your hat on. Are you saying that if you or anyone else said anything about her yesterday, it would be inappropriate, but today, because it's not the day she died, it's fine?

Yeah, yeah, I know YOU didn't say anything about her. You are, however defending the nasty things other people said as some kind of valid criticism. Have you read that site and what was posted? It's bullying, and if that happened to your children, by name, you wouldn't be so hands off about it.

I actually DID used to read GOMI, and nothing happened on there to her children. The owner of the site had very firm rules at the time about not shit-talking kids. Nobody but Dooce ever made fun of her kids, or exposed stuff about them. It was all her. And I highly doubt the kids are reading GOMI or this site yesterday or today.. They're probably scrambling to get extensions on finals and figuring out where a funeral will be, etc.

[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.

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.

This. They also target vulnerable people with their "ads" which many influencers don't even disclose and I think she was one of the incredibly high earners doing this. I wish her well. I only occasionally read GOMI-found some on there a bit too much. We do need to discuss and expose the exploitation of children of bloggers. If she was simply a private mommy blogger with a private account not profiting off this stuff, then it would be truly terrible to criticize. She was a public figure profiting off her children and sell, sell, selling. I wish the family peace and love. It is sad whatever happened. People who question the ethics of all this mommy blogging for profit are not responsible for her death and it's disturbing to imply we must never criticize or expose people profiting in concerning ways because that person might get depressed. She has struggled her whole life long before anyone said children need to be protected.

Ha, GOMI is *not* just criticizing her for profiting off her kids. There are a lot of people building a movement for kids of vloggers to have some rights and build awareness of how much it can mess them up. It is thanks to the efforts of those people that we are going to see improvement in this situation. All that GOMI woman did was create a terrible website for people to anonymously hate.

[Anonymous]

Wow, this thread is really toxic. This woman was obviously very troubled and in a lot of pain, and her death is a tragedy. Some of the comments here are really lacking in humanity. I haven't read Dooce in a really long time and when I have come across her blog occasionally in recent years, it seemed clear she was struggling quite a bit. I hope her family, and especially her kids, have the support they need.

Perhaps a good rule of thumb for posting in this thread would be to ask yourself how you would feel if her children were to read what you wrote here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel so bad for her younger kid. They are only 13 and now almost certainly going to be ripped from her home and end up... where? At least her older daughter is already away at college.

Her last post on her website is like a love letter to her older daughter posted when her partner confirms she was still really sober.

With her father, who is still very involved in their lives.

On the other side of the country and only sees them in the summer, no? Extremely hard for a 13 year old.

How could you possibly know how involved he is or not? Yikes.

Dooce shared a lot...

She was so unstable in the past few years. I have a hard time believing that she had full custody during the school year, but who knows. Jon moving to NYC always seemed really neglectful, though. OTOH maybe he knew that due to her mental health issues, more involved coparenting would have been impossible.

Anyway, when she announced she was an addict/alcoholic last year, it seemed at first really abrupt and dramatic, but then it made a LOT of sense. The tone of her writing had become so ranty and weird - it made a lot of sense that substance abuse might have been involved.

[Anonymous]

How sad. I remember reading her blog after she had Leta. Those kids went through a lot with Heather for a mom, but this has to be crushing for such young people.

Heather was a jerk and a mess, but maybe the conversations will evolve about children's rights to privacy, and mental health challenges playing out online, and how a segment of the population will always sign on for a front row seat in a celebrity's downfall and possible destruction.

I can't imagine the shock and pain that those who did/do love Heather are going through today. I wish them peace.

[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.

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?

I never said unbelievably shitty things about Heather. And if I did, she was being unbelievably shitty. I don't subscribe to the concept that you have to put anyone whose died on a pedestal. If she did really shitty things, yeah I probably talked about it. If she chose to read that, that's on her. You have to own what you do and say. She said TONS of very personal stuff about her daughters that had to be embarrassing for them. If I talked about how crappy that was of her to do, I'm okay with that.

You just sound like a mean, unhappy woman who clearly will kick someone when they are down. You have to look in the mirror. I couldn’t do that if I said hateful things on the internet, anonymous or not.

[Anonymous]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/us/heather-armstrong-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

[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.

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.

This. They also target vulnerable people with their "ads" which many influencers don't even disclose and I think she was one of the incredibly high earners doing this. I wish her well. I only occasionally read GOMI-found some on there a bit too much. We do need to discuss and expose the exploitation of children of bloggers. If she was simply a private mommy blogger with a private account not profiting off this stuff, then it would be truly terrible to criticize. She was a public figure profiting off her children and sell, sell, selling. I wish the family peace and love. It is sad whatever happened. People who question the ethics of all this mommy blogging for profit are not responsible for her death and it's disturbing to imply we must never criticize or expose people profiting in concerning ways because that person might get depressed. She has struggled her whole life long before anyone said children need to be protected.

Ha, GOMI is *not* just criticizing her for profiting off her kids. There are a lot of people building a movement for kids of vloggers to have some rights and build awareness of how much it can mess them up. It is thanks to the efforts of those people that we are going to see improvement in this situation. All that GOMI woman did was create a terrible website for people to anonymously hate.

Yes, not sure what the point is of conflating criticism of certain blogging/social media practices and personal attacks on a blogger's appearance, sanity, relationships, clothing, personality, (offline) mothering choices, etc. Engaging in the former does not mean you have to excuse the latter. And c'mon, there is very little substantive criticism on GOMI, or for that matter on DCUM (though frankly, even this cesspool is miles better than the GOMI-style hater sites).

[Anonymous]

I just feel like death should draw a line on ugliness. For goodness sake.