Stickers In The Wyld

I find myself looking at stickers out in the world because that’s where I end up when I leave the house.

[stickersinthewyld]

Santa Fe, NM

[stickersinthewyld]

Albuquerque, NM

In the Frontier

[stickersinthewyld]

Spokane, WA

[deceasedcardinal]

[blupeeblep]

Like to charge, reblog to cast

[stickersinthewyld]

Berkeley

[stickersinthewyld]

San Francisco

[stickersinthewyld]

San Francisco

[stickersinthewyld]

Airport Waffle House

Albuquerque NM

[ellipsus-writes]

If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

[weaselle]

[stickersinthewyld]

Santa Fe National Forest

[stickersinthewyld]

Santa Fe, NM

[stickersinthewyld]

Denver, CO

[stickersinthewyld]

Denver, CO

[stickersinthewyld]

Trinidad, CO

[stickersinthewyld]

Talbeblahblah, CO

[stickersinthewyld]

Santa Fe, NM

[stickersinthewyld]

Santa Fe, NM