The em dash never left: a scan of 163M Reddit posts finds it at 7x its 2021 level, and "quietly" is up 3.7x

The claim that the em dash no longer gives away ChatGPT writing is only half right, according to an analysis that hit the top of r/ChatGPT on Oct 24.

The poster, u/krutitsky, says they checked 10.9 million long posts and 152 million long comments across 100 big subreddits from 2021 to 2026, after a December post saying "the em dash giveaway is gone" drew 23,000 upvotes and similar posts followed in January and March.

The share of long posts with an em dash peaked at 6.8% in mid-2025, fell 30% after GPT-5 and the "no em dash" fix, then crept back up; in 2026 it's still 7x the 2021 level. In comments it never topped 1.5%, which the poster says rules out autocorrect. The newer tells are real: "And honestly?" is up 6x and "quietly" 3.7x, rising in 56 of 58 subs. "Delve" peaked in 2024 and is back to its 2021 level.

Commenters pushed back that they learned em dashes in school and won't give them up, and noted that grammar-checking apps insert them too. The poster said the analysis was built with KissMyPost, a Reddit analytics tool they're making.