Em dashes are the Sharknado of text

The more I think about it, em dashes are the Sharknado of writing.

What 30 years ago would have been a crazy feat now feels like obvious special effects.

You know that moment in a movie when the CGI gets so obvious it breaks your immersion? That’s what’s happening with em dashes in 2025. We’ve developed “AI blindness” where our brains filter out patterns that feel artificial.

The real issue isn’t the punctuation itself. It’s the moment readers start questioning authenticity instead of engaging with ideas.

We’re creating an “authenticity uncanny valley.”

Meanwhile professional writers have been loving em dashes since long before ChatGPT existed. But now they’re second-guessing themselves, worried their natural style might trigger someone’s AI detector.

The same technique goes from impressive to eye-roll-inducing purely based on audience expectations, not because the thing itself has changed.

The feedback loop is absurd: the more people avoid certain patterns to seem “authentic,” the more those patterns become markers of inauthenticity.

Welcome to 2025, where even punctuation has an uncanny valley.