Mashable Managing Editor Blasts ‘A-holes’ on Forbes 30 Under 30 List

Foster Kamer launches extended Twitter rant

Forbes Magazine announced its annual 30 Under 30 list on Tuesday highlighting the achievements of the up-and-coming generation of figures in media, politics, business, culture and more.

For media, the list was a Benetton-worthy lineup that included familiar faces, like CNN political reporter Andrew Kaczynski, and some less famous figures, like cinematographer Khaled Khatib.

But Mashable Managing Editor Foster Kamer wasn’t having any of it, launching an extended Twitter rant on Tuesday blasting the list and everyone on it. (It goes without saying that Kamer himself was not on the list.)

“Most of these people, you will not hear about again. And that will become deeply crippling for them — to be validated once early in your career, and then, never again. That is worse than never making them in the first place,” he wrote.

“These people have sacrificed normal lives, normal friends, and normal relationships with people. Many of them view all personal relationships as deeply transactional,” Kamer continued in apparent stream of advice directed at twentysomething media workers. “Do you want to be that? No! You don’t! We call those people ‘a–holes.’”

While Kamer lauded some who made the Forbes media list, like Freedom of the Press Foundation reporter Peter Sterne, he was critical of others, calling out author and Instagram poet Rupi Kaur by name.

“Shout out to Rupi Kaur for her hustle,” he wrote. “But if my a– could clench a pen independent of the brain in my head it could write better poetry on the bottom of a slurpee cup than anything she’s ever inked.”

Ouch.

Kamer, who did land on a 2010 New York Times list of “Rising Stars of Gossip Blogs,” told TheWrap that he originally wanted to offer encouragement.

“I have a lot of love for a lot of people who were wondering in public or private why they weren’t on these lists. And the truth/message is: ‘It’s a semi-arbitrary, deeply human process. Don’t worry about it. You’re great, and you’ll be even better if you ignore some arbitrary ranking, and forge forward with confidence,’” he said via Twitter, adding that his bit about “a–holes” had been in jest.

“I know a few people on the list, and I’m genuinely super happy for them, and they’re not at all a–holes,” he said. “When I called them all a–holes, I was being facetious.”

Here’s a portion of his Twitter tirade.

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