Famecrawler
“Mommy Blogger” Launches Campaign To Exploit Hate Mail
When it comes to parenting bloggers, Heather Armstrong is clearly the closest thing there is to an honest to goodness celebrity (hey, she’s been on Oprah). Of course — like others who broadcast their kids lives for a living — Dooce’s fame and fortune has brought with it an endless supply of hate mail. Well, what if you could sell it?
In a sense, that’s what Armstrong is now doing. She calls it “Monetizing the Hate,” and what she does, basically, is take some of the choicest of the hateful messages and comments she receives and posted them on a page that is otherwise covered with ads.
Thus, she’s profiting off of the content so graciously provided by her haters — pretty ingenious.
For any of her regular readers (I’m not one, but my wife is), you know that Armstrong is constantly receiving vitriolic hate mail for one thing or another — often for exploiting her daughters (kinda like a less intrusive version of Jon and Kate).
Is “Monetizing the Hate” genius? Or the ultimate in greedy exploitation? I tend to think it’s the former, but that’s in hindsight mostly. When Armstrong started her blog, parent blogging was a new thing, and thus more controversial.
Now, with idiots like Octomom and the Gosselins to compare her to, it’s seems incredibly benign. Maybe that’s why Armstrong was ranked 26th on Forbes’ list of “Most Influential Women in Media.”
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4 Comments
Lia commented on Sep 19 09 at 2:45 amI don’t hate her, but I don’t love her either. For a while there it kind of felt like she was exploiting her daughter, but she’s toned it down a lot in recent months. Ironcally, I now find her blog far less compelling and interesting. I hate to think what that says about me.
But for the record, I don’t bother reading the so-called ‘hate’ site. It seems really boring but more power to her.
Chris commented on Sep 20 09 at 5:24 pmI’m not really sure where the line between exploiting children and talking about what the parenting experience is like lies. How can you possibly talk about the ups and downs that come with parenting without providing readers with a sense of what your child is like?
puasamanda commented on Sep 20 09 at 10:25 pmI started reading Dooce a couple of months into my pregnancy this past year. After being put on bedrest for twelve weeks mid-pregnancy, I had nothing to do, so I went through all the archives and everything (whew!). I am always amazed at the capacity for hate that people seem to have, and their penchant for sending it right on to Heather. People will say anything, and they don’t stop at hating on Heather alone. I’ve seen comments calling her husband every name in the book, calling her daughters ugly, and even “retarded” (the poster’s word, not mine!). I enjoy the blog, and am very glad that Heather keeps blogging in spite of things being said about her and her family which might make a thinner-skinned person hang up the towel. She has always seemed to handle the vile comments with a mixture of witty sarcasm and, yes, class…if she has figured out a way to capitalize on the hate that pours her way, good for her.
SL commented on Sep 20 09 at 11:55 pmStop giving her credit for being a genius. Even Heather has clearly said this was not her idea. Geez, people are so dazzled by her that they can’t even hear the truth. Also, most of that “hate mail” are comments she copied and pasted from another person’s blog. Yes – private property.
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