Who are you?

I’m S Peter Davis. I’m a writer based in Australia.

My first name starts with S, I don’t write it out because, first of all it does let me keep a tiny bit of anonymity. Not a blanket or a cloak, obviously, but more of a thin linen sheet or semi-translucent cellophane. Also I like my first name but it isn’t a very good writer name, it’s more of a sports name, but that is of course completely subjective. So I initialise it to make it a tad more writery. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald. Or, you know… L. Ron Hubbard I guess.

I don’t tend to use the full stop for quirky style reasons but I’m not going to crawl up anyone’s arse about it.

People occasionally get confused about how to refer to me and they call me Peter. That doesn’t annoy me but it’s not the best way to get my attention because I am a bit slow sometimes so I respond better to SPD or Davis. Or Sped, people called me that at school a lot and I think it’s supposed to be offensive.

What have you done that I would care about?

I was an editor, writer, and columnist for Cracked.com from around 2011 to 2018. You can find my articles for that site here, but I also did a lot of work that my name isn’t on, just because that’s the ghostly nature of an editor for online content.

If you know me for anything else, it might be for a YouTube video series I did called Three Minute Philosophy. I stopped doing those for a number of reasons including: Didn’t have the time; Doing an educational series is really stressful if you’re not an expert yourself because people were taking it very seriously as a learning tool and I didn’t want to misinform anyone by accident; YouTube’s algorithm is brutal and it will squash and hide you if you don’t do what it wants, when it wants; They refused to monetise me at all for reasons that were never stated.

What am I going to find here?

Since the internet media general apocalypse started full swing, I’m more a Columnist At Large, now. I’m writing once a week about whatever comes to mind - culture, society, current affairs, whatevs!

Upgrading to a paid subscription for $5 a month (or $50 annually) will give you access to monthly bonus content. Currently I am running a series called The Bitter Files. And you’ll get to support the work of a writer who isn’t currently drawing any salary for this stuff — it would not go unappreciated! Nevertheless, all of my regular columns, which I publish each weekend, are free to read.

In any case, thanks again and enjoy.