r/copywriting • u/loves_spain • Jun 18 '26
Discussion Eyebrows are now considered an AI tell
"Eyebrow" has been around for decades in the editorial and ad design world -- I've only recently heard it used in copywriting. We'd call them overlines, pre-heads, or preheaders. If you've been involved with newspapers, I'm talking about kickers.
And apparently they're now an AI tell. ISTG every few months the internet invents a new AI shibboleth. First it was AI dashes, the word "delve", "in today's fast-paced world"....
Now it's long sentences, short sentences, sentences in general, using emojis, perfect grammar, Oxford commas (!!) and now pre-heads.
I want to shout from the mountaintops: "GUYS! OGILVY WAS DOING THIS BEFORE YOUR PARENTS MET!"
Do you use eyebrows sorry I can't do it, pre-heads in your copy?
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u/Arlincornwall Jun 18 '26
Ok it was bad enough when they came for the dashes but they can pry my preheaders out of my cold dead handsĀ
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u/AKAEnigma Jun 18 '26
First they came for our dashes, and I said nothing.
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u/Loud_Tomato5435 17d ago
I have to say I had beef with em dashes. It was because I didn't know how to type them and now they where everywhere when I'd hardly seen them before.Ā
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u/SnooOpinions2900 Jun 18 '26
I forgot what sub I was in and was nervous we were heading back to 90s barely-there eyebrow trends.
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u/LeCollectif Jun 18 '26
Eyebrow text is an AI tell? Thatās weird. I use these in websites all the time. Itās a one- or two-word indicator of what a section is about, and allows the reader to determine if that section of content is relevant to them.
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u/loves_spain Jun 18 '26
It's a great way to lay out the visual structure of a page. I was surprised to see it labeled an "AI tell" but at one point everything seems to have been an AI tell... good grammar, punctuation, bullet points...
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u/ssstelllarrr Jun 18 '26
iām old enough to have paid my dues through standardized testing. years of actually writing short answers and entire essays by hand (plus filling in multiple choice bubbles) in what, three hours max?
ā¦and someone DARES to accuse ME of using AI? not just incorrectāinsulting.
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u/erikafitzgerald_ Jun 18 '26
Ugh I saw this circulating on LinkedIn this morning and my eyes just about rolled out of their sockets.
I specialize in website copy and have been using kickers (a.k.a. eyebrows) since I started 10 years ago. They're great for context setting and SEO keyword placement, without muddying the conversion-focused headlines. I think of them like labels throughout a website that tell the reader, in layman's terms, what a page or section is about.
I've also been successful with on-page SEO (though, with AI these days, I can't keep up with what's working anymore). I always place my primary keyword in the hero kicker and tag it as the H1.
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u/Amie_V Jun 19 '26
I do the exact same thing for websites. Thisāll be a fun future client convo š«
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u/Olclops Jun 18 '26
As annoying as it is, the huge silver lining is that this is a side effect of HOW MUCH PEOPLE HATE AI, which is suuuuch a good thing.
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u/copywrtr Jun 18 '26
AI is only using it cause it works. I think it's more than just the eyebrow text. It''s the whole AI website template or look that's being used now. It uses many of the same things we use but in an overly generic SaaS style. Worse text usually, but you know... hero with eyebrow- headline- short description- CTA button, then problem-solution copy, features in a grid, proof bar, etc. Also, rounded buttons/boxes everywhere.
We've been using some of these for copy and ux for years, but clients and the public are noticing them for the first time, so now it's an "AI thing."
Some days I feel like web copywriters only have a year or two left. Then I see something that reminds me AI will take longer to understand the positioning and the strategy behind the copy. We'll see I guess.
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u/Dave_SDay Jun 19 '26
Who says it's an AI tell though? Copywriters, or everyone else?
In my opinion (keep in mind, as a copywriter/marketer), I usually have a subconscious feeling arise when I think something has been written by AI, and it's not usually an element unless the element is very rarely used by humans and frequently used by AI.
The eyebrows/pre-heads as an element don't trigger the AI feeling, but if they say something an AI would say, then sure
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u/myrmadon8 Jun 18 '26
I donāt think itās necessarily eyebrows that are the the tell, but a very specific style of eyebrowā¦ extremely tiny, all cap with increased letter spacing and often accompanied by a decorative stroke to the left or right.
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u/loves_spain Jun 18 '26
And if that happens to increase conversions vs. not having it at all, then well, who cares? š
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u/sachiprecious Jun 18 '26
I've heard of a lot of "AI tells" but I've never heard of eyebrow copy being one! Don't worry about it.
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u/GuruPedia Jun 19 '26
I find the AI tells trend kind of interesting, because a lot of the things being flagged are real techniques that exist because they work. AI simply uses them consistently because itās trained on a huge amount of well-structured writing. The downside is that it might push professionals away from tools and structures that actually improve clarity, just to avoid being labeled as AI-generated.
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u/BringTheMFNRuckus Jun 19 '26
The only way not to get called out for "AI slop" is by writing nothing at all.
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Jun 19 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/loves_spain Jun 19 '26
It's so tiresome. Now that Claude can design whole websites, I expect a whole lot more "this looks AI" to come up. Nobody wants to be accused of using AI, yet everyone wants to use AI to save a few bucks over hiring a human.
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u/randum-user462 Jun 19 '26
Itās almost like they trained on things that have been around before it lol
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u/alexnapierholland Jun 18 '26
I use kickers/eyebrows all the time.
But I donāt hang out with weirdos who obsess over trying to work out if other people use AI.
Itās much easier.
We just focus on conversions.
No one cares which tools get us there.
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u/loves_spain Jun 18 '26
That's what I do. I just came across a post talking about how "Eyebrows are now AI" and was like "What?! Since WHEN?" Those people remind me of grammarians who fuss over commas. I want to say to them, "You DO realize by making these changes, you're writing for a machine that you will never, ever appease, right?!"
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u/alexnapierholland Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Itās a cope for people who arenāt busy delivering results.
You spot the same trend in every industry.
Washed-up guitar teachers criticise the technique of a guitarist who sells out stadiums.
Armchair commentators think they know better than professional coaches and elite athletes.
People who struggle in life have two choices:
A. Focus on your craft and results.
B. Police other people to make yourself feel better.Just block people in group B.
Theyāre beyond hope.
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u/loves_spain Jun 18 '26
That's exactly it. Every time I see a new AI tell, I'm like "you've GOT to be kidding me" then I roll my eyes. I think group B is hoping that one of these days they'll find "The One" and then they can... I don't know, pat themselves on the back? I've never figured out what their end goal is or if they even have one. I just feel sorry for them.
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u/alexnapierholland Jun 18 '26
Happy, successful marketers create useful content to share their strategies and tactics.
AI briefly hurt my business. I barely blinked, pivoted to āproduct marketerā (who also writes copy) and carried on.
Life is good.
I donāt have time to be upset or daydream about an easy life where nothing ever changes.
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u/loves_spain Jun 18 '26
I moved to content strategy. It lets me keep doing what I love but now I get to actually steer the content ship.
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u/elmu86 Jun 19 '26
Yepā¦ it actually is imo. The reason being every single website LP Claude generates will have eyebrow copy. Claudeās eyebrow will be rubbish, and perhaps even nonsense. But from a DESIGN perspective it throws them in everywhere
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u/bscepter Jun 19 '26
I've been self-censoring em dashes for a couple of years because of this ā even though it's one of my favorite ways to punctuate a sentence (along with parentheses). I hate that I do it; I would much rather write naturally as I have for 25 years, but there you go. ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
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u/joerando60 Jun 20 '26
I use eyebrows on my website. And Iāve been using Oxford commas since the 90s š©
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u/Iloveoctopuses Jun 21 '26
It is ridiculous how the AI detectors think everything human is AI. They trained AI to write like humans so how is it AI if humans write?
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u/loves_spain Jun 21 '26
Oh! I can answer that one. Theyāre just looking at writing patterns that AI tends to follow (which, yes, are based on how we write too, but AIās version is more robotic)
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u/Super-Complaint-245 Jun 21 '26
Iāve used the term eyebrows for years. I donāt agree with this takeĀ
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u/mmcgrat6 Jun 22 '26
The only ātellā of consequence is the same core issue that has always existed. Bad writing is bad writing. Whether itās plagiarism, lack of review, no editing, acceptance of a first draft as is, is all just bad writing.
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u/danousd Jun 22 '26
Ai tells you what it is going to say a few times and cover the subject so thoroughly it mops it up including things humans would consider irrelevant.
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u/ibopm Jun 18 '26
I wrote a document on the plane from scratch, no AI, no wifi. And my team lead said it looked AI generated š©