The slop stops here.
Every post the squad writes is checked against these rules before you ever see it. A banned phrase means the draft gets rejected and rewritten, automatically.
The banned list
Fourteen of the most recognizable rules, in plain English. You have seen every one of them on your feed this week.
“In today’s fast-paced world…”
An opener that fits every topic ever written, which is exactly why it says nothing about yours.
“Offices aren’t empty. They’re just misread.”
The “[X] isn’t [Y]. It’s [Z].” pattern is the single most common AI structure on LinkedIn.
“Genuine question: how do you stay consistent?”
Questions that announce their own sincerity rarely contain any.
“Two sentences. Then a break. Two more. Then a break.”
People write in lumps and models write in meter, so paragraph length is forced to vary between one and five sentences.
“We talk to a lot of founders…”
Social proof from conversations that never happened, with founders who do not exist.
“Not magic — a system — and that’s the point.”
The model’s favorite key gets a hard cap: one em dash per post, and the rest become commas.
“Let me break this down.”
Condescending by design, and nobody asked for a breakdown.
“Here’s the thing…”
No sentence may start with “Here’s” or “Most”, because if there is a thing, the post can just say the thing.
“What’s the biggest blocker keeping you from posting?”
A closing question engineered for comment counts, not for an answer anyone wants to give.
“Hot take: consistency matters.”
Opinions that arrive with a warning label are reliably room temperature.
“Let that sink in.”
An instruction to be impressed, issued when the writing could not manage it on its own.
“You ship. You post. You grow.”
Models adore parallel threes, and people do not talk in snare hits.
“A game-changing platform to seamlessly leverage your content.”
Words that live in pitch decks and nowhere in human speech.
🚀💡🔥
Eight emojis are banned outright as the most overused AI garnish on LinkedIn, and these are the top three.
Curated from the live rule set that runs on every generation. The full list is longer, and it grows every time a new tell shows up in the wild.
Spot the slop
On the left, the patterns from the list above packed into one post. On the right, a real post that went through the rules.
In today’s fast-paced world, showing up online is everything. 🚀1
Here’s the thing: most founders simply don’t have time to post.2
Consistency isn’t a habit. It’s a system.3
We talk to a lot of founders — they start strong — then the feed goes quiet.4
What’s the biggest blocker keeping you from showing up? Let me break this down in the comments.5
1. “In today’s” and “fast-paced world” are both on the banned-phrase list, and 🚀 is one of the eight banned emojis.
2. Sentences may not start with “Here’s” or “Most”. This one manages both.
3. The “[X] isn’t [Y]. It’s [Z].” reframe, the most common AI structure on LinkedIn.
4. “We talk to a lot of founders” is invented social proof, and the post is one em dash over the limit.
5. The engagement-bait closer, plus “Let me break this down”. Both banned.
One more, free of charge: five paragraphs, five identical one-sentence beats. Uniform rhythm is a tell all by itself.
A constructed example of common AI patterns. We wrote this one ourselves to demonstrate the tells; it does not quote any real tool’s output.
My CMO asked once why I post every week if our follower count barely moves. I showed her the 3 pipeline deals that started with someone reading my content for 2 months before booking a call. Followers are vanity. Pipeline is the only number that pays salaries.
Opens with a specific moment, not a sweeping claim about an industry.
Concrete numbers stated flat: 3 deals, 2 months.
Paragraphs of different weights, zero banned phrases, zero em dashes.
A real post, drafted by Ghost and published from a live campaign.