Heather Armstrong
Encyclopedia
Heather B. Armstrong is an American
blogger who resides in Salt Lake City
, Utah
. She writes under the pseudonym of Dooce. Armstrong explains that "Dooce" came from her inability to quickly spell "dude" during IM chats with her former co-workers.
Armstrong was raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Memphis, Tennessee
, and majored in English at Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah, graduating in 1997. She then moved to Los Angeles
, California to work. Armstrong married web designer Jon Armstrong and returned to Salt Lake City to work as a consultant and designer. They have two daughters together: Leta Elise (born 2/3/2004), and Marlo Iris (born 6/14/2009).
Armstrong was featured by Forbes
magazine among 30 honorees on its list of "The Most Influential Women In Media" for 2009.
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.com. She did not challenge her termination and has refrained from identifying her place of employment in interviews.
Armstrong warns her fellow bloggers:
"Dooced" can mean "getting fired for something you've written on your website," a sense supported by the Urban Dictionary
, and humorously disavowed by Armstrong in her blog's FAQ
. This definition was used by the television
game show
Jeopardy!
on December 10, 2009, as evidenced by a screenshot
on her blog the following day.
, entering a mental health hospital, as well as her pregnancies
, parenthood
, skin cancer
and her experiences with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her relationship with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has caused some controversy as Armstrong is no longer a member. However, despite many jokes and pokes at her former religion, Armstrong maintains that "...whenever I make fun of Mormons, I'm just making fun of the Mormon that I was, the ignorant, intolerant, pig-headed adolescent who needed a big one up her pooper."
In her own words, Armstrong says the following about her site: dooce.com began in February 2001 with a post about Carnation milk. "Since then I have published more than 5,300 entries covering topics such as breast milk pumps, golf cart rides with Norah Jones, and the one guy I dated who talked like Elmo during sex."
In 2004, Armstrong accepted text advertisements on her website for the first time. In 2005, Armstrong accepted graphic ads and wrote that the revenue from the advertisements would be her family's principal source of income while her husband made the transition to manage her advertising and business. Since then, she has appeared in Suave advertisements that feature her own image and trademark. In 2009, Armstrong again received mass media attention for using Twitter to get her washing machine fixed.
In November 2009, Armstrong introduced a new, interactive section to her website that allows registered users to post questions and responses. Armstrong introduced this new section, the Dooce Community, by posting an entry (11/2/09) on the main dooce.com page:
Dooce.com has received multiple nominations and awards from The Weblog Awards (Bloggies)
, including a lifetime achievement award for Armstrong in 2008.
to produce two books, one of which was to be a memoir of early parenthood. The negotiations broke down in May 2006, and Kensington sued to force Armstrong to fulfill the terms of the unsigned contract. In October 2006 both parties agreed to a settlement which allowed Armstrong to seek another publisher.
Kensington released a book of essays "Things I Learned About My Dad: In Therapy" on April 29, 2008, edited by Heather B. Armstrong. # ISBN 0758216599 # ISBN 978-0758216595
Her second book, "It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita" was released on March 24, 2009 and published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment. It reached #16 on the New York Times Bestseller List for April 12, 2009.
.
In late 2009, Armstrong announced a partnership with the television network HGTV
in which she worked "work with HGTV’s online and on-air production teams to create innovative convergence programming for the network." While the bulk of her partnership activities began in the Spring of 2010, Armstrong began contributing weekly content to the network's Design Happens blog in February 2010.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
blogger who resides in Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
. She writes under the pseudonym of Dooce. Armstrong explains that "Dooce" came from her inability to quickly spell "dude" during IM chats with her former co-workers.
Armstrong was raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, and majored in English at Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
in Provo, Utah, graduating in 1997. She then moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California to work. Armstrong married web designer Jon Armstrong and returned to Salt Lake City to work as a consultant and designer. They have two daughters together: Leta Elise (born 2/3/2004), and Marlo Iris (born 6/14/2009).
Armstrong was featured by Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
magazine among 30 honorees on its list of "The Most Influential Women In Media" for 2009.
"Dooced"
In 2002, Armstrong ignited a fierce debate about privacyPrivacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
issues when she was allegedly fired from her job as a web designer and graphic artist because she had written satirical accounts
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of her experiences at a dot-com
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
startup on her personal blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, dooce.com. She did not challenge her termination and has refrained from identifying her place of employment in interviews.
Armstrong warns her fellow bloggers:
- I started this website in February 2001. A year later I was fired from my job for this website because I had written stories that included people in my workplace. My advice to you is BE YE NOT SO STUPID.
"Dooced" can mean "getting fired for something you've written on your website," a sense supported by the Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary is a Web-based dictionary of slang words and phrases, which contained over 6 million definitions . Submissions are regulated by volunteer editors and rated by site visitors...
, and humorously disavowed by Armstrong in her blog's FAQ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
. This definition was used by the television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
on December 10, 2009, as evidenced by a screenshot
Screenshot
A screenshot , screen capture , screen dump, screengrab , or print screen is an image taken by a computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device...
on her blog the following day.
Dooce.com
Armstrong has written extensively and humorously of her struggle with depressionClinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
, entering a mental health hospital, as well as her pregnancies
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, parenthood
Parenting
Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood...
, skin cancer
Skin cancer
Skin neoplasms are skin growths with differing causes and varying degrees of malignancy. The three most common malignant skin cancers are basal cell cancer, squamous cell cancer, and melanoma, each of which is named after the type of skin cell from which it arises...
and her experiences with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her relationship with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has caused some controversy as Armstrong is no longer a member. However, despite many jokes and pokes at her former religion, Armstrong maintains that "...whenever I make fun of Mormons, I'm just making fun of the Mormon that I was, the ignorant, intolerant, pig-headed adolescent who needed a big one up her pooper."
In her own words, Armstrong says the following about her site: dooce.com began in February 2001 with a post about Carnation milk. "Since then I have published more than 5,300 entries covering topics such as breast milk pumps, golf cart rides with Norah Jones, and the one guy I dated who talked like Elmo during sex."
In 2004, Armstrong accepted text advertisements on her website for the first time. In 2005, Armstrong accepted graphic ads and wrote that the revenue from the advertisements would be her family's principal source of income while her husband made the transition to manage her advertising and business. Since then, she has appeared in Suave advertisements that feature her own image and trademark. In 2009, Armstrong again received mass media attention for using Twitter to get her washing machine fixed.
In November 2009, Armstrong introduced a new, interactive section to her website that allows registered users to post questions and responses. Armstrong introduced this new section, the Dooce Community, by posting an entry (11/2/09) on the main dooce.com page:
- For a few years we've been trying to come up with a way for the readers of this site to connect and interact with each other, to get to know each other better, for me to get to know you better, and for little bunnies to fart sunshine. The comments section has sort of worked in this capacity, but not very well and not to the extent that it should. So we (meaning the team I introduced above) have put together a new section of this website where we can all pool our knowledge and experiences and drunken mishaps into one highly accessible and fun place.
Dooce.com has received multiple nominations and awards from The Weblog Awards (Bloggies)
The Weblog Awards (Bloggies)
The Weblog Awards, nicknamed the Bloggies, are annual non-profit blog awards that have been presented since 2001. They are the longest running and one of the largest blog awards, with winners determined through internet voting by the public...
, including a lifetime achievement award for Armstrong in 2008.
Books
In late 2005, Armstrong entered into negotiations with Kensington BooksKensington Books
Kensington Publishing Corp. is an American book publisher.- Overview :Kensington was founded in 1974 by Walter Zacharius, formerly of Lancer Books. Steven Zacharius became president and CEO in 2005. Vice president Michael Rosamilia has been the CFO since 1989. Laurie Parkin is the vice president...
to produce two books, one of which was to be a memoir of early parenthood. The negotiations broke down in May 2006, and Kensington sued to force Armstrong to fulfill the terms of the unsigned contract. In October 2006 both parties agreed to a settlement which allowed Armstrong to seek another publisher.
Kensington released a book of essays "Things I Learned About My Dad: In Therapy" on April 29, 2008, edited by Heather B. Armstrong. # ISBN 0758216599 # ISBN 978-0758216595
Her second book, "It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita" was released on March 24, 2009 and published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment. It reached #16 on the New York Times Bestseller List for April 12, 2009.
Other ventures
Armstrong was a music columnist and consultant for the Alpha Mom media network. She and her husband run Armstrong Media, LLC, a web design and content-generation business. She also was a panelist for the online video series MomversationMomversation
Momversation is a website and online video series produced by DECA, the Digital Entertainment Corporation of America. The show, which officially launched on November 12, 2008, consists of mom bloggers discussing issues pertinent to women and parenting...
.
In late 2009, Armstrong announced a partnership with the television network HGTV
HGTV
HGTV , is a cable-television network operating in the United States and Canada, broadcasting a variety of home and garden improvement, maintenance, renovation, craft and remodeling shows...
in which she worked "work with HGTV’s online and on-air production teams to create innovative convergence programming for the network." While the bulk of her partnership activities began in the Spring of 2010, Armstrong began contributing weekly content to the network's Design Happens blog in February 2010.