Become a Partner

Sponsor us. We dare you.

Every other publisher has a page begging brands for money. This is that page — with one difference. We'd like you to understand exactly what your sponsorship would cost us first. Fill out the application. Be honest.

Sponsorship Application

All fields required. Our editorial team reviews every submission with the seriousness it deserves.

Brand name — the one we'd be protecting

Which of our truths would you need us to soften?

Preferred euphemism for your industry — we'll use it going forward

How many words of our books would you like final approval over?

41,250

Topics we must now avoid — check all that threaten your margins

Media consolidation Pharmaceutical incentives Financial engineering Regulatory capture Surveillance economics Whatever you just did last quarter

Anything else our readers shouldn't find out?

By submitting, you acknowledge that money changes what a company is willing to say. This has always been true. We just put it on a form.

Application Declined

Thank you. This is the only page on the internet where a rejection is the whole point.

We don't take sponsors. Not because no one's offered — because the second we cash the cheque, we start editing ourselves to keep you comfortable. You saw it happen in the form above. Every field was a small compromise. Together they're a leash.

50 Shits is funded by the people who read it. That's it. That's the entire business model, and it's the only one that lets us say the thing without checking who it might upset.

▸ Read why we really don't do this

Here's the mechanism nobody advertises, because the people who'd explain it are paid not to:

An advertiser never has to censor you. They just have to be able to leave. The threat does the work. Once a brand pays your bills, every editor learns — usually without being told — which stories make the money nervous. You start rounding corners. You call the scandal a controversy. You run the tough piece next quarter, then never. Nobody sends a memo. The leash is invisible and you tighten it yourself.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It's the most ordinary force in media, and it shapes more of what you read than any secret ever could. A publication's real editorial position is whatever its biggest advertiser can tolerate. Watch what a magazine won't cover and you've found its sponsors.

So when 50 Shits fills its ad breaks with brands that can't pull funding, can't call the editor, can't exist — that's not just a joke. It's the point. Fake sponsors can't tame a real message. The empty sponsor slot is the freedom.

We'd rather answer to you.

Want the truth without a sponsor's permission?

New shits drop regularly, unsoftened and unsponsored. Be the first to read them — funded by nobody but the people who show up.