Rage Against Em Dashes

If you haven’t heard, one of the easiest ways to tell if a text is AI-generated is by looking for em dashes (—). Now, I don’t know why that is, but I have always preferred the use of em dashes versus a regular hyphen (-). I think it looks better and it’s much easier to see when you’re reading.

A few days ago, I came across a blog post titled “Em dashes are fucking amazing” by Sasha Putilin. I never understood why there is so much pushback on the use of em dashes. In fact, Wikipedia has a great article about “Signs of AI Writing”. I use this article as a way to tell AI agents not to do something. In that article, there is a section specifically devoted to em dashes.

I’m still unsure why it matters if em dashes are used. So what if a text is potentially AI-generated? AI is a tool like any other tool and how it’s used is up to the user. I think that using em dashes is a good way to show that you’re not just spitting out words, but actually thinking about them.

Sasha aptly captures this:

“But what would people think of my writing if I ever used an em dash? What if someone points one out in my writing?”. Bitch, please. Are you writing for an internet rando who’s got nothing better to do than to hunt for em dashes?

And Sasha ends with this great quote:

“But also, maybe consider not giving a fuck about what someone on the internet think? Are you really that easily swayed by a rando’s opinion?”

So yea, I’ll be using em dashes as I see fit. Thank you very much!