Unfortunately a lot of contests etc. are anti-AI usage without having a formal system for detecting it. In practice that means anyone using a lot of em-dashes will be flagged by a reviewer as AI-likely.

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iamdamian 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would say that using a lot of em-dashes was always bad writing. You want to use them sparingly if you want them to have impact.

That said, yes, keep using them (and using them well!).

	▲	iansteyn 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		This is true. I actually originally started using em-dashes because a high school english teacher called out my overuse of regular dashes (where they technically should have been em-dashes, but he didn’t know that) in the place of other types of transitions… which prompted me to research the punctuation properly and consider other ways to transition thoughts too.

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jasonvorhe 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Then these contests are run by lazy people and they aren't worth the effort of submitting your work to.