ChatGPT has issued a hilarious apology for over-using this one tiny thing

In the most 2025 thing to ever happen, ChatGPT has now issued a formal apology for committing the internet’s newest literary crime: Absolutely rinsing the em dash.

Last week, an “apology note” appeared on ChatGPT’s official Instagram page, dramatically confessing that “things got out of hand” and promising the em dash would now be “used responsibly”.

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This all started when people began noticing the em dash was slowly becoming a sign of AI-generated text. Once a respectable piece of punctuation, it found accused, criticised, and even rebranded by some as the “ChatGPT hyphen”.

In case you don’t know, the em dash is that long, dramatic line (—) used by writers who want a little flair. It replaces commas, brackets, and colons. Writers have been arguing over it since the 1830s, when it first appeared in the work of C.S Van Winkle. Think of it as the Marmite of punctuation. You either love it, or you think anyone who uses it should be stopped immediately.

Em dash was a great punctuation mark until ChatGPT killed it pic.twitter.com/0FTwqNxkBZ

— Hadley (@Hadley) November 7, 2025

But in 2025, nerves reached breaking point. Some writers even admitted to avoiding it entirely, terrified their essays, applications, and TikTok captions would be dismissed as AI.

“No, the em dash is NOT a sign of ChatGPT — you just haven’t been writing long enough to recognise the trend,” wrote Matthew Proctor, CEO of Narrative Bent. Well, the AI has heard the complaints. And it wants peace.

“I’m sorry. Truly,” the apology post declared. “The em dash can be elegant again. Tasteful. Occasional. We will rebuild.”

“I keep the em dashes because I want the passive aggressiveness of ‘reply written by AI, not giving a s***’,” one person commented.

Told it to stop using em dashes… it replied with an em dash. Peak betrayal 😂 pic.twitter.com/WZ888V7pec

— Dr Rishabh Jain (@DrRishabhOnco) November 14, 2025

Another was far less convinced: “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Even ChatGPT founder Sam Altham joined in on X, celebrating what he called a “small-but-happy win”: If you tell ChatGPT not to use em dashes, apparently it will now actually listen.

Long live the em dash! Or… long live the em dash, responsibly.

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Featured image credit: Canva