this reads like an ad for your project
(Protip: if you're going to use em—dashes—everywhere, either learn to use them appropriately, or be prepared to be blasted for AI—ification of your writing.)
Having em-dashes everywhere—but each one or pair is used correctly—smacks of AI writing—AI has figured out how to use them, what they're for, and when they fit—but has not figured out how to revise text so that the overall flow of the text and overall density of them is correct—that is, low, because they're heavy emphasis—real interruptions.
(Also the quirky three-point bullet list with a three-point recitation at the end with bolded leadoffs to each bullet point and a final punchy closer sentence is totally an AI thing too.)
But, hey, I guess I fit the stereotype!—I'm in Seattle and I hate AI, too.
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For me, the issue is that they’re misused in this piece. Em dashes used as appositives carry the feel of interruption—like this—and should be employed sparingly. They create a jarring bump in the narrative’s flow, and that bump should only appear when you want it. Otherwise, appositives belong with commas (when they’re integral to the sentence) or parentheses (when they’re not). Clause breaks follow the same logic: the em dash is the strongest interruption. Colons convey a sense of arrival—you’ve been building up to this: and now it’s here. Semicolons are for those rare cases when two clauses can’t quite stand alone as separate sentences; most of the time, a full stop is cleaner. Like this. Which is why full stops should be your default splice when revising.
Sprinkling em dashes everywhere—even if each one is technically correct—feels like AI writing. The system has learned what they are, how they work, and when they fit, but it hasn’t learned how to revise for overall flow or density. The result is too many dashes, when the right number should be low, because they’re heavy emphasis—true interruptions.
(And yes, the quirky three-point bullet list with bolded openers and a punchy closer at the end is another hallmark of AI prose.)
But hey, I guess I fit the stereotype—I’m in Seattle, and I hate AI too.
But introductory rhetorical questions? As sentence fragments? There I draw the line.
IIRC (it's been a while) there are 2 cases where a semi-colon is acceptable. One is when connecting two closely-related independent clauses (i.e. they could be two complete sentences on their own, or joined by a conjunction). The other is when separating items in a list, when the items themselves contain commas.