It's been annoying me lately how often I see people declare that certain blog posts or articles are AI-generated due to the presence of certain "tell-tale signs," (emdashes being the #1 example). It annoys me even if I agree that the thing in question is probably is AI-generated—mainly because I really like emdashes and I use them in my own writing all the time, and it grinds my gears knowing that some percentage of the population will assume I used AI because "hurr durr emdash == AI."

I'm not necessarily talking about Tildes. I'm sure I've seen it on here, but the worst offender by far is Hacker News where often one of the top comments on a linked article that has an emdash somewhere in the body will be a snarky comment about how it's clearly AI generated.

Anyway, I blew off some steam this weekend by making this silly satirical website/art project called GENIUS AI Detector that makes me giggle, so I'm sharing it in the hopes that it brings a bit of joy to any fellow emdash users who are likewise depressed about the shadow that has been cast over one of my favorite punctuation marks.

Mine is a Facebook group called ALDI Aisle of Shame. I don't know if it's okay to link to it, so I'll just let you all google it if you want to check it out!

Not too long ago on /r/femalefashionadvice, someone mentioned a product in a comment section and I went to look for it online. This lead me to said group and the place was so unexpectedly incredibly wholesome..! It is the silliest thing. There are more than one and a half million members all praising the quality of ALDI products, and posting pictures of their hauls.

Recently, a trend was to post pictures of your dog and even a pony in hats gotten from ALDI and it is just so much fun! Even women doing the Spiderman meme in real life as they spot each other with the same outfit from ALDI.

PS: I am aware Tildes is text-focused so please let me know if this many images in a post is against the spirit of Tildes! Wasn't sure if it's ok to include images in a text post like this.