Use the Fucking Em Dash

There’s a rumor going around that the em-dash is a “bot tell.” That acts like using a specific piece of punctuation marks you as a machine.

That is absolute, unadulterated bullshit.

It’s the kind of paranoia that makes boring people feel smart. They see a long line breaking up a sentence and think, “Aha! An algorithm wrote that.” They’re wrong. They’re mistaking style for code.

The Anatomy of a Pause

Here’s what I learned from my almost English minor and erotica days, a period stops the action. A comma just taps the brakes.

But the em-dash? It suspends time.

It’s the look across the room before the glass shatters. It’s the hesitation before the truth comes out. It’s messy, dramatic, and deeply human.

AI didn’t invent that rhythm. It learned it from us. It scraped the best writers in history—folks who knew how to bleed onto the page—and mimicked their cadence. Blaming the dash for AI is like blaming the guitar because a synthesizer can make a similar sound.

Don’t Surrender the Tools

If we stop using the em-dash because we’re scared of looking like a computer, we lose.

We start writing in flat, lifeless sentences. We strip away the nuance. We become the very robots we’re trying to avoid.

Simple as that.

Real thoughts aren’t linear. They crash into each other. They interrupt themselves. They veer off the road into the ditch—and that’s where the good stuff is. The em-dash is the only piece of punctuation wild enough to handle actual human consciousness.

Fuck The Noise – Use the Em-Dash

So, keep using it. Abuse it. Put it where it doesn’t belong just to spite the purists.

Let the paranoid crowd analyze your syntax while you’re busy actually saying something. If they can’t tell the difference between a soul and a search engine, that’s their problem.

You’ve got a voice. Don’t let them mute it. I’m not about to stop this shit.