Insisting that emdashes are only used by AI is grad student erasure
November 9, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Insisting that emdashes are only used by AI is grad student erasure
Just read this and discovered there were eight emdashes in a three-paragraph text… really disappointing… hadn't realized Abraham Lincoln used GenAI
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysb...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysb...
Gettysburg Address - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 12, 2026 at 1:58 AM
Just read this and discovered there were eight emdashes in a three-paragraph text… really disappointing… hadn't realized Abraham Lincoln used GenAI
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysb...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysb...
gently reminding the well-intentioned-but-misguided fellow AI haters that there is no "AI detector" that actually works. yes even that one everyone says actually works, that thing gets bamboozled by emdashes. 🙃 it is more reliable to use your own brain (and ask other people if they concur)
November 9, 2026 at 9:39 PM
gently reminding the well-intentioned-but-misguided fellow AI haters that there is no "AI detector" that actually works. yes even that one everyone says actually works, that thing gets bamboozled by emdashes. 🙃 it is more reliable to use your own brain (and ask other people if they concur)
Indeed the reason AI use emdashes is because of grad students. The early models were first trained on academic papers, being a publicly available large archive of language, before they started the book burnings.
November 9, 2026 at 6:07 PM
Indeed the reason AI use emdashes is because of grad students. The early models were first trained on academic papers, being a publicly available large archive of language, before they started the book burnings.
Oh so you hate emdashes
November 9, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Oh so you hate emdashes
I'm sorry I'll never stop emdashing my wife had to beat my ellipses out of me but you'll have to take my emdashes out of my cold, broken— dead handsn
speaking as somebody who loathes AI: some people are WAY too trigger-happy with their AI writing allegations. AI detectors are not reliable. Em-dashes are not inherently suspicious. You better have more than that if you're going to go at somebody.
November 12, 2026 at 3:18 AM
I'm sorry I'll never stop emdashing my wife had to beat my ellipses out of me but you'll have to take my emdashes out of my cold, broken— dead handsn
i don’t, and i do use emdashes quite liberally in fact
November 10, 2026 at 6:28 PM
i don’t, and i do use emdashes quite liberally in fact
And public domain books; emdashes were very common in pre-1900 texts with ridiculously long sentences.
Also very common in advertising. So. Several different types of writing that are heavy on emdashes; AI said "ooh This Is How Humans Write" and inflicted them in everything.
Also very common in advertising. So. Several different types of writing that are heavy on emdashes; AI said "ooh This Is How Humans Write" and inflicted them in everything.
November 9, 2026 at 8:01 PM
And public domain books; emdashes were very common in pre-1900 texts with ridiculously long sentences.
Also very common in advertising. So. Several different types of writing that are heavy on emdashes; AI said "ooh This Is How Humans Write" and inflicted them in everything.
Also very common in advertising. So. Several different types of writing that are heavy on emdashes; AI said "ooh This Is How Humans Write" and inflicted them in everything.
some of you are out here fighting anti-AI battles armed with shit like "if you see six fingers its AI" and "if you see emdashes its AI" and i really want you to know, you are desperately outgunned and have no idea just how badly
you're gonna need to know your enemy better than three years ago
you're gonna need to know your enemy better than three years ago
November 10, 2026 at 11:47 PM
some of you are out here fighting anti-AI battles armed with shit like "if you see six fingers its AI" and "if you see emdashes its AI" and i really want you to know, you are desperately outgunned and have no idea just how badly
you're gonna need to know your enemy better than three years ago
you're gonna need to know your enemy better than three years ago
You can have my emdashes when you pry them from my cold, dead keyboard. And don't even THINK about any funny business with my semicolons, either.
Insisting that emdashes are only used by AI is grad student erasure
November 9, 2026 at 7:43 PM
You can have my emdashes when you pry them from my cold, dead keyboard. And don't even THINK about any funny business with my semicolons, either.
my boss apparently thinks all emdashes are "AI"
I'll have a look. I hope it addresses the fact that Automatic AI Detection techniques have huge racial and neurodivergent biases, with folks with Autism Spectrum being flagged as AI about 50% of the time.
If it doesn't I hope it can soon.
If it doesn't I hope it can soon.
November 9, 2026 at 8:25 PM
my boss apparently thinks all emdashes are "AI"
Fable 5.2 breaks a record that Anthropic hasn't touched since Fable 5 — most emdashes in the announcement post
November 10, 2026 at 4:17 AM
Fable 5.2 breaks a record that Anthropic hasn't touched since Fable 5 — most emdashes in the announcement post
Fable 5.2 breaks a record that Anthropic hasn't touched since Fable 5 — most emdashes in the announcement post
November 10, 2026 at 4:14 AM
Fable 5.2 breaks a record that Anthropic hasn't touched since Fable 5 — most emdashes in the announcement post
slack updated to convert -- to emdashes and I can't help but feel this is a way for ai stans to muddy the waters of what ai generated text looks like.
November 9, 2026 at 2:05 PM
slack updated to convert -- to emdashes and I can't help but feel this is a way for ai stans to muddy the waters of what ai generated text looks like.
i’ve had to learn how to not use emdashes in my writing lately because it’s like THE ai hallmark. it sucks, i loved emdashes…
November 10, 2026 at 9:04 AM
i’ve had to learn how to not use emdashes in my writing lately because it’s like THE ai hallmark. it sucks, i loved emdashes…
Yes I like using emdashes for parenthesis. I think it makes text flow naturally as if it were being spoken. Deal with it. No refunds
November 4, 2026 at 9:49 PM
Yes I like using emdashes for parenthesis. I think it makes text flow naturally as if it were being spoken. Deal with it. No refunds
Was very excited to see it, but am now incredibly turned off by how obviously AI was used to create this. The "about" section has it all: overuse of emdashes. What it is. What it isn't.
Oh wait, they straight up mention using cursor & Claude in the privacy section.
Oh well, into the garbage it goes
Oh wait, they straight up mention using cursor & Claude in the privacy section.
Oh well, into the garbage it goes
November 10, 2026 at 10:44 AM
Was very excited to see it, but am now incredibly turned off by how obviously AI was used to create this. The "about" section has it all: overuse of emdashes. What it is. What it isn't.
Oh wait, they straight up mention using cursor & Claude in the privacy section.
Oh well, into the garbage it goes
Oh wait, they straight up mention using cursor & Claude in the privacy section.
Oh well, into the garbage it goes
Let's play count the emdashes and count the low-contrast text
November 10, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Let's play count the emdashes and count the low-contrast text
Reading ”Co-Existance“, by @emollick.bsky.social , in which he comments that he hesitates using his beloved emdashes, because people might think AI wrote the text, not him.
I feel you, Ethan!
Stop looking at emdashes. Read the text. Then ask: was it good, useful, or inspiring?
That’s all, really.
I feel you, Ethan!
Stop looking at emdashes. Read the text. Then ask: was it good, useful, or inspiring?
That’s all, really.
November 6, 2026 at 12:46 PM
Reading ”Co-Existance“, by @emollick.bsky.social , in which he comments that he hesitates using his beloved emdashes, because people might think AI wrote the text, not him.
I feel you, Ethan!
Stop looking at emdashes. Read the text. Then ask: was it good, useful, or inspiring?
That’s all, really.
I feel you, Ethan!
Stop looking at emdashes. Read the text. Then ask: was it good, useful, or inspiring?
That’s all, really.
Any time a pretentious idiot like this uses emdashes it’s basically giant red flags that this is copy/pasted from grok
November 5, 2026 at 11:15 AM
Any time a pretentious idiot like this uses emdashes it’s basically giant red flags that this is copy/pasted from grok
Different situation, but I've had to change my own writing style because my natural writing voice uses emdashes and semicolons, which are now heavily correlated with AI-generated writing, and it's sooooo frustrating
November 2, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Different situation, but I've had to change my own writing style because my natural writing voice uses emdashes and semicolons, which are now heavily correlated with AI-generated writing, and it's sooooo frustrating
You can pry emdashes out of my cold dead hands tysm xoxo
November 5, 2026 at 1:58 AM
You can pry emdashes out of my cold dead hands tysm xoxo
Not a writer, outside of as a hobby, but I tend to use emdashes a lot. Something about them suited the way my nurodiverse brain builds sentences. It annoys me that now it's an AI flag. Although perhaps rather telling of how both of us came to over-use them.
November 3, 2026 at 5:47 PM
Not a writer, outside of as a hobby, but I tend to use emdashes a lot. Something about them suited the way my nurodiverse brain builds sentences. It annoys me that now it's an AI flag. Although perhaps rather telling of how both of us came to over-use them.
But text is fungible. You can’t watermark text snippets. Not meaningfully.
This is just gonna be emdashes and “not just A, but B” all over again
This is just gonna be emdashes and “not just A, but B” all over again
November 2, 2026 at 1:38 PM
But text is fungible. You can’t watermark text snippets. Not meaningfully.
This is just gonna be emdashes and “not just A, but B” all over again
This is just gonna be emdashes and “not just A, but B” all over again
My co author and I have 64 emdashes in a 60 page manuscript and no it is not GPT, we are academic siblings both trained by someone who was very undiagnosed and never used commas or full stops
We also trauma bond on other issues, including forced Foucauldianization.
We also trauma bond on other issues, including forced Foucauldianization.
November 2, 2026 at 1:29 AM
My co author and I have 64 emdashes in a 60 page manuscript and no it is not GPT, we are academic siblings both trained by someone who was very undiagnosed and never used commas or full stops
We also trauma bond on other issues, including forced Foucauldianization.
We also trauma bond on other issues, including forced Foucauldianization.