Something I’ve noticed over the past couple of months is the influx of people using AI for their social media content. I don’t mean bot or company accounts pumping out posts to farm engagement, I mean real people editing their own writing with AI to post on their personal Reddit, Threads, or LinkedIn accounts (using these three as examples because they’re the ones I use).
As for how I can tell if something was written or modified by AI, and no, I’m not judging based off of em dashes, those poor things – It’s a combination of rhetorical questions, overly dramatic prose, sarcasm or self deprecating quips, AND the occasional em dash in the same post coupled with the OPs (original poster’s) comments or other posts being in a totally different tone that does it for me. Now, do I have concrete proof that everything I clock as AI is actually AI generated? No. Is it possible that there’s tons of AI generated/edited posts I haven’t noticed at all? Definitely. Scroll to the end to see my best rendition of what AI sounds like right now.
Truth be told, a few months ago I wouldn’t clock writing as AI generated at all unless I knew the original poster in real life. Maybe it’s an issue with the newer model(s) having a similar voice? I know I’m not imagining it, since there’s always at least one person in the comments pointing this out. The authors aren’t afraid to admit it either, usually saying they used ChatGPT to make their thoughts better/clearer/more readable or because English isn’t their first language, which is fine, only,…..
…..I don’t want all the content I read to sound the same – this is a thought that struck me after watching this youtube video, where Janae talks about how everyone gets pushed to look and sound the same; whether it’s by following the same makeup/fashion/food trends or getting the same cosmetic surgery procedures. When you dump your writing into AI, you can definitely retain the “core” of what you wanted to say, but at what cost? You risk losing parts of it that were imperfect but easy to understand, funny, relatable, or otherwise meaningful. There’s books I love where the plot is simple or a little cliche but the writing kept me hooked. There’s youtube channels I watch that aren’t producing anything revolutionary, like reviewing popular makeup or just lifestyle vlogs, but I watch because of their unique voice and delivery.
If you were on Tumblr a few years ago, you’d appreciate that a lot of the popular posts shared a similar voice. Same goes for specific youtube or tiktok niches – it isn’t uncommon for a voice or tone to take hold in a community and for people to imitate each other unconsciously or consciously, but this is the first time I’ve seen it happen across such varied demographics. I see AI generated content ALL over the internet now, not in specific forums or pages.
Unlike professional contexts where some content exists for formality’s sake and not necessarily to be read, the whole point of scrolling through social media (for me) is to read other people’s thoughts and ideas. This blog post isn’t meant to be doomposting about AI, but I will confess seeing these makes me feel a little defeated and wonder what the point even is 🤷♀️ if people are busting out apple intelligence to perfectly format and rewrite every little thing. I miss not having to triple check if a post was made by a real person or a bot.
PS: I’ve seen more than a few people say they intentionally include misspellings or imperfect sentence structure in their content to prevent others from thinking it’s AI, which I find extremely funny. That said, if you found this post terribly written, it was simply me cleverly proving I didn’t use AI (you’re welcome).
Bonus! Here’s what AI-generated content sounds like to me, inspired by the very first post I saw when I opened LinkedIn today:
You get it. Your notion that the sky looks different might sound crazy, but honestly? It’s right on the money.
The sky isn’t blue right now—and here’s why.
You’ve always noticed the sky looking Icy. Aquamarine. Smurf-like.
But today? None of that. No pale blues, no medium blues, no blues at all.
Here’s the cool part: As the day goes on, the sun actually dips beyond the horizon—no more baby blues, just pinks and yellows.
It isn’t just the sun setting.
It’s the earth’s way of winding down for the night.
Labyliner 
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