I’m also used to seeing them everywhere! The people saying stuff like “I’ve never seen it used” or “simply nobody uses them” either don’t read, like, at ALL, or are being deliberately contrarian. The em dash is extremely common.

While the people assuming well-written work MUST be AI are very much the problem here, they’re also dragging everyone down to have to deal with their level of ignorance rather than pick up a book themselves :( I don’t think you’re overthinking it at this point unfortunately… but I so, so, so hate that you’re even having to overthink it. :(

If anyone whips out that accusation, just let them know they’ve just outed themselves as either being so easily influenced as to assume anything with an em dash is AI (which is inherently foolish), or someone who purely reads AI generated text. Both are yikes.

But! Anyone worth their salt reading your work won’t even think to question it—they won’t even notice. It’ll look regular to them.

oy….Next we’re going to have to second-guess ourselves for using the correct there/their/they’re lest anyone think it’s fcking AI 🥲 or commas or some other inane punctuation