FIPS-N-ADVERTISING

Here's the thing: When Benjamin and I started FIPS back in the '08, we had two basic goals: to keep our lazy asses writing every day, AND to shed some light on all of the insanity that goes down in the neighborhood we live in and love. I honestly thought that the blog would be up for a couple of weeks before a band of neighborhood BREEDERS teamed up, tracked down my address, kidnapped my dog and burned my apartment building down to the ground. Surprise, surprise: 2,476 posts, 2+ years, 12 kick-ass Staff Writers and Contributing Editors, an Ad Director and a Managing Editor later, here we still are. Believe me, no one is more surprised by this fact than #myfatass is.

And the fact of the matter is: as big of a GIGANTIC pain-in-the-ass as running a blog like this is (and trust me, ppl...we're talking b-i-g), it's also been one of the most amazing things I've ever been a part of. And pretty much all of that is due to your asses...and the fact that you read this shit every day. So gracias x a billion for that.

But now that FIPS is bigger, better, and more bad-assed then it's ever been, we're lucky enough to have some advertisers around this joint. And so I wanted to give you guys the scoop on what that all means, how we've been dealing it and what it means for the site.

I don't want to get into a whole big debate on this stuff, but if we did, I'd be squarely on side: Advertisers are great for FIPS, yo!

Here's why Advertisers are good for FIPS:

• Running this site takes like a bajillion hours, all my free-time, and even a chunk of my very own hard earned money. And even then, I still need loads of help. Making some advertising cash means I'm way less likely to take a swan dive off of the Brooklyn bridge with some murdered Propsect Park Canadian Geese strapped to my ankles (bye bye FIPSy).
• We only accept adverters who we genuinely dig. Notice that you never saw a Mama Rosa ad around here? That was no accident. If you like reading FIPS, then chances are, you'll probably dig checking out some of the advertisers that we feature.
• Accepting ads mean we won't ask you to come to a bunch of annoying ass fundraisers or put up some cheesy "donate" button. Translation: save all your money for hookers-n-drugs!

Win/win, right??

Anyway, here's how the advertiser thing works: any time someone is paying us to say something, you'll know cause we'll have SPONSORED in big fat all caps letters on the post. If our posts sometimes seem fishy, I can assure you that they're not. We all live, eat, drink and shop in this neighborhood too, and since we only accept advertising from businesses we love and support, sometimes we're going to talk about those businesses--cause we'd be going there whether they paid us for advertising or not.

All of our banner ads go under the "buy shit, you're worth it" header on the sidebar, and all of our paid deals go directly on our deals page. Sometimes we send out sponsored tweets and those are also always tagged with "sponsored."

As for you guys: if you love FIPS and dig hanging out here and reading all the shit that we write, the nicesest thing you could do for us is to GO SPEND MONEY IN THE PLACES THAT ADVERTISE HERE. You gotta admit: it's a pretty BALLER move to spend your ad dollars on a site with the word "fuck" in its URL, and that type of behavior should seriously be rewarded. So go to these businesses, tell em you read about them on F'd in Park Slope, mention FIPS in your Yelp reviews, and encourage your fave cool ass local businesses to get in touch and get up some advertising of their own.

Or not...whatever. But if you do, we'll love you forever.

Any questions? Leave em below in the comments, or feel free to email me directly at effedinparkslope at gmail.com