Heather Brooke Armstrong (née Hamilton; July 19, 1975 – May 9, 2023) was an American blogger and internet personality from Salt Lake City, Utah, who began writing under the pseudonym Dooce.

She was best known for her website dooce.com, which peaked at nearly 8.5 million monthly readers in 2004 before declining due to various factors including the rise of social media; she had actively blogged from c. 2001 until her death by suicide in 2023.

After graduating in 1997, she then left the Church and moved to Los Angeles, where she found work as a web developer for startups during the dot-com boom.

[7][8] She wrote extensively and humorously of her struggle with depression, hospitalization for mental health, pregnancies, parenthood, and experiences with the LDS Church.

[5] In November of that year, 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,[11] by posting an entry on the main dooce.com page:[13] 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.

[14] Dooce also attracted attention from websites devoted to making sardonic and critical observations about lifestyle bloggers, such as Get Off My Internets and the subreddit blogsnark.

After an experimental treatment in 2017 proved successful, she resumed her previous Internet posting, albeit to a much smaller audience, and began making money as an influencer, although she was critical of the practice.

[5] In 2002, Armstrong ignited a fierce debate about privacy 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.

[22] Her second book, It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita, was published on March 24, 2009, by Simon Spotlight Entertainment.

[citation needed] Through a mutual friend Heather met Jon Armstrong, another former Mormon web developer from Utah.

In 2004, after the couple's first child Leta Elise was born, Armstrong began devoting much of her blog to parenting, becoming one of the first, as well as most popular, mommybloggers.

[37] While she was able at first to travel and make speaking engagements, and do some freelance marketing work, she soon found the pressures of single parenthood overwhelmed her.

[5] Armstrong continued to write sponsored content, getting affiliate marketing revenue from Stitch Fix and Amazon, and maintained an Instagram feed in addition to her blog.

[5] After the divorce, she and Pete Ashdown, a tech entrepreneur and two-time Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seats from Utah, became romantically involved.

[5] On May 9, 2023, Ashdown found Armstrong dead by an apparent suicide by gunshot[38] in their shared Salt Lake City home.