Rusty Foster (born July 1976) is an American media critic and

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

. He has been described as "something of a Zelig-like figure in internet history, popping up in key roles at various stages in the web’s development." He is the author of ''Today in Tabs'', the founder of

Kuro5hin Kuro5hin (K5; read "corrosion") was a collaborative discussion website founded by Rusty Foster in 1999, having been inspired by Slashdot. Articles were created and submitted by users and submitted to a queue for evaluation. Site members cou ...

, and the creator of Scoop, a collaborative media application used by several websites. He also helped develop Scripto, the screenwriting software company founded by

Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to ...

. In 2013, his Facebook account was subject to a "prank" reporting him dead, drawing the attention of several major news outlets. Since 2013, Foster has written occasionally for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' magazine.

Early life

Foster was born in July 1976. His father, Lawrence Foster, was a franchise developer for

Dunkin' Donuts DD IP Holder LLC, doing business as Dunkin', and originally Dunkin' Donuts, is an American multinational coffee and doughnut company, as well as a quick service restaurant. It was founded by Bill Rosenberg in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 19 ...

. He grew up in

Plymouth, Massachusetts Plymouth ( ; historically also spelled as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in and the county seat of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklor ...

, and spent summers at his grandparents' cottage on Peaks Island,

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

. Foster graduated from Falmouth Academy in 1994. He enrolled at the

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public university, public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England, William III and Queen ...

, where he studied physics and film studies before dropping out his senior year. He learned

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

and moved to

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, where he worked for government agencies.

Kuro5hin

Kuro5hin (K5; read "corrosion") was a collaborative discussion website Foster founded in 1999, inspired by

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally billed itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories on science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evaluated by site ...

. Around 2005, it had tens of thousands of members. On May 1, 2016, the site closed down, with all content taken offline.

''Today in Tabs''

Foster writes a

news media The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public. These include News agency, news agencies, newspapers, news magazines, News broadcasting, news channels etc. History Some of the fir ...

and

Internet culture Internet culture refers to culture developed and maintained among frequent and active users of the Internet (also known as netizens) who primarily communicate with one another as members of online communities; that is, a culture whose influence ...

newsletter called ''Today in Tabs''. Its first iteration, which ran from 2013 to 2016, was syndicated on Fastcolabs and ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'' and had about 12,000 subscribers. He restarted the newsletter in 2021 on

Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription-based content, including newsletters, podcasts, and video. It allows writers to send digital content directl ...

, with a

Discord Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...

server for subscribers. In 2024, Foster moved the newsletter to Beehiiv, citing Substack's willingness to host extremist speech, including

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

Personal life

While a student at William & Mary, Foster met Christina Fischer, a history major. They married and moved to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in 2000. In 2001, they moved to Peaks Island, where they live with their three children.

Notes

References

External links

Foster's user page on Kuro5hin

Foster's weblog

Q&A: Rusty Foster at HotelChatter

Fast Company's profile on Rusty Foster

Farces Scoop Interview with Rusty

Rusty Foster's Scoop fell by script kiddies

JLog: Q&A Rusty Foster

Rusty Foster on Web Blogs and Journalism at a video interview at Berkeley

Today in Tabs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, Rusty American bloggers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American media critics American computer programmers