celebrity gossip, academic style

Today’s guest post comes from frequent contributor Alaina Smith, who first introduced me to Dooce’s particular brand of Jack-Mormon, dog-mortifying humor more than five years ago.

Heather Armstrong founded Dooce.com in February, 2001 when she was a single, 28 year-old working as a web designer in L.A. A year later, she was fired from that job, after a co-worker forwarded the link to her blog to the vice presidents of her company.

The incident was picked up on Metafiler, and thus, “dooced” - getting fired from your job because of content on your personal website - entered the modern lexicon. Heather and her husband moved from LA to Salt Lake City to be near their families shortly thereafter, where Heather supplemented writing with freelance design work until she began earning enough advertising revenue to blog full time.

In the last decade, Armstrong’s blog has grown up with her. Heather married her boyfriend, moved back to Mormon country, bought a house, and had two children. What started as the cynical, self-conscious musings of a good-girl-gone-bad, who had escaped her Southern, Mormon, upbringing to drink whiskey and listen to Interpol in LA, morphed into one of the world’s most popular mommy blogs.

When Armstrong had her first child in 2004, she wrote with painful honesty and a wicked sense of humor about both the joy and overwhelming confusion of new parenthood. She also chronicled her battle with post-partum depression – she was diagnosed with clinical depression prior to her pregnancy – including her stay in a mental hospital when her first daughter was six months old. Her trademark style –overshare so funny it’s endearing coupled with gorgeous photographs – and her willingness to admit how hard parenthood often is, endeared her to millions of readers. Many of them were mothers themselves, who expressed their gratitude that someone was finally writing honestly about modern parenthood. (There are also many, many people who despise Heather Armstrong. She and other popular mommy bloggers have entire hate sites devoted to them - but that’s a whole other post.)

Dooce.com is now the full time job of both Heather and her husband, Jon. The blog supports an online community and a merchandise store. Heather is the author of a bestselling book, was named by Forbes as one of the 30 most influential women in media in 2009, and just signed an exclusive development deal with HGTV.

Even though her notoriety has grown immensely over the last decade, Heather Armstrong has maintained a tightly controlled brand. She does not contribute regularly to any publication – online or print – other than her own blog. She has authored only one book, and has not signed any product endorsement deals. Her media appearances have generally addressed only parenthood or blogging. She still blogs about the mundane details of daily life; four recent posts discussed a new necklace, her husband’s fender bender, the party favors at her daughter’s sixth birthday party, and her family’s Sunday morning tradition of baking and eating cinnamon rolls.

The Forbes list of powerful women in Media includes many of the top female journalists in America. The rest are women who appear on lifestyle television, where they tell American women, not just subconsciously, but directly, how to be: Oprah, Tyra Banks, Martha Stewart, Kelly Ripa, Rachel Ray, the ladies of The View.

In the past, Armstrong has strongly denied accusations that she uses her popularity to influence her readers or “bully” companies – see her very detailed, explanatory post following a Twitter firestorm that erupted when she tweeted, to over a million followers, that consumers should boycott Maytag appliances. She also fiercely guards her right to raise her children without depending on the approval of her readers. FAQ number one on her website reads:

Should I send you unsolicited advice?
No.

In a recent post entitled “Check Up for Self Delusion,” Penelope Trunk, another popular female blogger, recently wrote, “Probably the most accurate representation of women is in the blogosphere. There is no filter here, no need to appeal to both Peoria and Pasadena all at once.” She goes on to compare Dooce.com with an even more popular mommy blog, The Pioneer Woman.

“The Pioneer Woman is largely housewife porn. The men are hot and rugged, just like in a romance novel. The author, Ree Drummond, is running an operation similar to Rachel Ray or Martha Stewart, but she markets herself as a stay-at-home mom […] The Pioneer Woman’s traffic is absolutely through the roof, proving the appeal of preposterous escapism. Dooce, on the other hand, is more gritty, and has about half the traffic of Pioneer Woman. [...] I think the truth is that women don’t want to see themselves reflected back to them.”

As Annie has written extensively, the appeal of most popular celebrities, especially female celebrities, lies in our simultaneous identification with and envy of them. The women of lifestyle television must maintain a similar appeal: we identify with Rachel Ray’s desire to make dinner in 30 minutes, but we envy how easy she makes it look.

Heather Armstong is the only internet personality on the Forbes list, one who has built her career on telling us how she IS, vs. how we should BE. Rather than developing an identifiable-yet-enviable star persona, she has built a brand around the precept that Heather the blogger IS Heather the person - if you don’t like it, don’t read it. Her argument seems to be that any influence she has is a byproduct of personal transparency combined with exposure born of popularity - and she has managed her brand as such.

By signing a deal with HGTV, Armstrong has entered new territory - where she will use her brand to develop programming and sell advertising. If the blogosphere offers the least mediated version of American womanhood, its media darling just sold herself to perhaps the most mediated arena in American womanhood: lifestyle television.

All photos sourced from Dooce.com. Heather, if you read this, please don’t sue us - we will take the photos down if we need to.