There was a time when the em dash was a powerful tool in the writer’s arsenal—used to interrupt, to emphasize, to inject tone or rhythm into a sentence. I’ve used it for years, even had to Google it more times than I care to admit just to copy and paste the damn thing.
And then AI came along.
Now, you can barely read an article without seeing em dashes everywhere. It’s become something of a tell. If you see a post overloaded with them, chances are pretty good that it was written by a GPT.
Now, don't get me wrong. I use AI. I like AI. This very post even had some AI input. But my voice is my own and I’m not giving up my favorite punctuation mark because the bots happen to like it a little too much.
I’m taking back the em dash.
Not because it’s controversial. Because it’s useful. Because sometimes a comma is too weak, a period is too final, and parenthesis are too detached. Because sometimes, an em dash helps me says exactly what I want to say with just the right amount of pause.
So if you see one in my writing, don’t assume anything—except that I meant to use it.
Top comments (5)
Big em dash fan here
Absolutely agree! The em dash is such a powerful and expressive piece of punctuation — it bridges thoughts with rhythm and clarity in a way that commas or parentheses sometimes can't. I've definitely found myself second-guessing my use of em dashes too — especially because I didn’t want my writing to come off as AI-generated. But it’s time we stop fearing the em dash — and start embracing it more confidently in our writing!
love this energy, honestly. sometimes you gotta hang onto what works for you even when tech trends try to flatten everything out. you ever catch yourself tweaking your style because of ai trends, or do you just not care?
I've never been one to follow trends. AI hasn't changed that, but it has injected a little extra style into my work thanks to amazing image generators like FLUX. I usually wouldn't have time to make fancy graphics so I just didn't bother—now I can quickly and easily jazz things up!
huge supporter of the em dash, I sprinkle them in all my writing knowing most people won't notice but giving me typographic butterflies.
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