Gen Z Has Figured Out A Dead Giveaway That You're Using ChatGPT

The em dash has long been a favorite punctuation mark of writers everywhere. This lengthier dash can replace a comma or a colon. It’s also sometimes used to sum up info at the end of the sentence, to encase parenthetical info within a sentence, or to emphasize a point. To know an em dash is to love it, but according to Gen Z, it’s often a dead giveaway that someone’s writing came straight from ChatGPT.

This so-called “ChatGPT hyphen” is getting a lot of attention at the moment, according to podcaster Daisy Reed, who spoke about it in a recent episode of the LuxeGen podcast alongside co-host Sapna Rao. Reed pointed out that the clothing brand PrettyLittleThing recently announced a rebrand on social media, and the post was positively teeming with em dashes. The top comment under it read, “Including the ChatGPT hyphen [in this] is insane.”

According to the hosts, em dashes typically include a space on either side, which is true if you’re using AP style — a go-to for major publications. For another example, look at the sentence “When her best friend arrived — a half-hour later than expected — Liz’s party finally began” versus “When her best friend arrived—a half-hour later than expected—Liz’s party finally began.”

While spaces aren’t required when using em dashes, Reed said she’s noticed it feels very ChatGPT-coded to leave them out. The AI app seems to omit the space. As a result, “people are being called out that they are using ChatGPT,” she said.

The hosts went on to talk about it in greater depth and even shared a jokey public service announcement. If brands want to appear as if they’re writing their own ads, the hosts said they should be wary of their em dash usage and take them out before posting.

This is also a good reminder for students and others who use AI. “If you’re at school and you’re using [ChatGPT] for your essays, take out the hyphens,” Rao added. “I can always tell.”

The hosts aren’t anti-ChatGPT, as they both went on to say it’s a great tool for grocery shopping on a budget, among other things. Rao said she believes it’s also OK to use AI as long as you write your own words first. After you construct your own essay, for example, you might double-check your wording or grammar using ChatGPT, but after that, you should once again go through and rework the chat’s words into your own words. “Otherwise, everyone knows [you used ChatGPT],” she said.

While that advice is all well and good, folks on social media are more hung up on the idea that the em dash is now being referred to by a new name. On X (formerly Twitter), user @venturetwins said, “The fact that Zoomers are unironically referring to the em dash as ‘the ChatGPT hyphen’ is wild.” In the replies, user @Delikwu wrote, “I learned to write well from reading journalists, hence my love for em dashes... but sadly so did ChatGPT and other models.”

Is ChatGPT a fan of the zero-space em dash? To test it myself, I plugged in a fake request to find out. After asking ChatGTP to announce my new business rebrand, which will launch this Saturday, I got a fun, peppy announcement — but not a single em dash. When asked to rewrite the statement with em dashes, however, there wasn’t a space to be seen.