Heather Armstrong was called the “Queen of the Mommy Bloggers” for her popular blog Dooce.
- Died: May 9, 2023 (Who else died on May 9?)
- Details of death: Died by suicide at her home in Salt Lake City at the age of 47, according to her longtime boyfriend.
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If you or someone you know is experiencing warning signs of suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, calling 800-273-8255, texting HOME to 741741, or accessing the online chat service. Formerly the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the network provides free, confidential support for people in crisis or emotional distress, 24/7 year-round. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for more information.
Heather Armstrong’s legacy
Armstrong founded Dooce in 2001, before she had children, and the blog was initially a funny, biting chronicle of her experiences working at a dot-com startup. Her pointed jokes about her job and coworkers got her fired the following year, and “Dooced” became internet slang for being fired for inappropriate online comments about one’s job. Armstrong continued the blog after her dismissal, and when her first child was born in 2004, she began blogging extensively about the ups and downs of motherhood.
Joining the ranks of the early “mommy bloggers,” Armstrong attracted millions of readers, and she courted controversy when she became one of the first bloggers to make money by running ads on her blog. She didn’t sugarcoat her life, candidly sharing both the joys and the grossouts of motherhood. She also wrote about other topics, including her difficult departure from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Armstrong’s online writing led to the publication of her bestselling 2009 memoir, “It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita.” “The Valedictorian of Being Dead” followed in 2019 and focused on her years of treatment for depression. As blogs lost audiences to social media influencers, she pivoted to using social media to share her writing, though she spoke about her dislike of the appearance of perfection that’s expected on social media and said she refused to strive for it.
Armstrong discussed her mental health on the blog, sharing how postpartum depression derailed her life and detailing the experimental treatment she underwent for her clinical depression, in which a coma was induced to simulate brain death. In 2022, a controversial post on Dooce attacked parents who accept and encourage their children’s explorations of gender identity, despite the fact that she had appeared to accept her own child’s non-binary status, posting about them on social media.
Notable quote
“Being an influencer today means sharing picture-perfect moments, and that is not what I signed up for. Mommy blogging is dead, and I think most of my colleagues would agree.” —from a 2019 interview for Vox
Tributes to Heather Armstrong
Full obituary: The New York Times
