When the Collective Voice of Social Media Sounds Familiar
I am currently fascinated by social media posts. Especially on Linked-In.
Suddenly, we have all started to sound the same.
We make powerful metaphors and use the rule of three. We have hopeful sign-offs and quiet insights.
And the best of all? We all suddenly know how to use the em-dash.
You know that weird, long hyphen, once reserved for novelists, those who had the chance to take a creative writing course, or who write on Medium where the software adds it for you.
I am just as guilty. ChatGPT gave us a collective writing lift. Like a great facelift, but free.
I am reminded what my colleague, a wonderfully talented editor, said when ChatGPT was first making waves and I was advocating for using it to save time:
“I won’t do it.”
That’s all he said.
He didn’t explain much, but I have been interpreting ever since.
Maybe to him, it felt wrong. Like losing control over your voice, your message, your expression, maybe even of your soul — even if it was simply writing a policy speech (watch out em-dash!)
From a psychoanalytic perspective, this is fascinating.
When our writing skills are democratized and our posts become indistinguishable social masks, what then distinguishes us?
What do we still contribute, uniquely, to the collective?
These are questions I don’t have an answer for.
But my 14-year-old might.
“Mom, stop using ChatGPT. Just be yourself,” he says.
But being ourselves is hard work.
Then again, if we don’t have our Selves, what do we have?
So, how to we react when the thing that was supposed to help us — make us clearer, more articulate — just ends up making us sound more alike?
Looking around , I have a creeping sense that the alignment we see might only be on the surface, while underneath we feel increasingly divided.
And we know what happens when a quiet frustration underneath begins to build, as we search for some new way to stand out. We just need to look at history.
So maybe part of the answer lies in reconnecting to our Selves. And express what’s there. This was part of what C.G. Jung called ‘Individuation’. Not individuality, not branding, but the process of living more consciously, more aware. Of becoming who we are, while recognizing that, at the deepest level we’re also the same.
If you, too, find yourself noticing things like em-dashes in people’s posts, I put together a little AI-writing checklist. Just for fun. Maybe it’s a mirror, too.
Opening Lines
“I’ve been thinking…”
“What if…”
Tone Tricks
Rule of three (e.g. “bold, clear, human”)
A humblebrag disguised as failure
Stylistic Giveaways
Over-polished analogies or metaphors
The elegant use of the em-dash
Too-perfect flow
Emotional Hooks
A vague but deep-sounding insight
A moment of “quiet leadership”
Ending Moves
“Just be yourself” moral
Let that sink in
