If you think you’re using ChatGPT to write everything for you without people knowing, you’re wrong. This one sign makes it super obvious you used a chatbot.
From helping to come up with a great pick-up line to writing a resignation email, 300 million people use ChatGPT weekly, and everyone knows they’re doing it.
I know what you’re thinking… how? Well, it’s all thanks to a pesky little piece of punctuation called the em dash.
ChatGPT regularly uses the em dash in its responses, that weird symbol that’s slightly longer than a hyphen, which is used to indicate a break in a sentence.
Nothing says “written by ChatGPT” more than the em dash —
— Amy Wu Martin (@amytongwu) June 13, 2025
Lots of people copy and paste things from ChatGPT straight into text messages or emails word for word, so the em dash stays there. That’s where the problem lies.
Nobody actually uses the em dash in their everyday writing, apart from super academic people. So, it makes it super obvious that you’re using ChatGPT.
People have literally given the em dash a whole new nickname, “the ChatGPT hyphen,” because of how much the chatbot uses it.
Everyone is talking about it on social media, with one person writing on X: “Nothing says ‘written by ChatGPT’ more than the em dash —.”
“If you are going to use ChatGPT, please remove em dash (that long hypen). It’s a tell-tale sign,” said another.
If I see an em dash (this thing: — ) in a post
I am 100% going to assume it was written by ChatGPT
— CrispinCapital (@CrispinCapital) June 21, 2025
So, if you’re the kind of person who copies things from ChatGPT straight into an email, social media post or text, em dashes and all, you’re not fooling anyone. They know.
Next time you use ChatGPT to write something for you, take out that god damn em dash after you copy and paste.
If you’re that lazy, you can literally ask ChatGPT to remove the punctuation mark from the text for you. Now you know, you’ll never look at that em dash the same way again.
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Featured image by: Canva
