Now I'm actually curious to see statistics regarding the usage of em-dashes on HN before and after AI took over. The data is public, right? I'd do it myself, but unfortunately I'm lazy.

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dang 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Someone did just that!

Show HN: Hacker News em dash user leaderboard pre-ChatGPT - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45071722 - Aug 2025 (266 comments)

... which I'm proud to say originated here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45046883.

	▲	JKCalhoun 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ha ha, my first use of an em-dash on HN was 2016 which was the year I started my account. I'm safe. It must be one of you that are the LLM! (Hey, I'm #21 on the leaderboard!).