Tone

False Drumroll

Promising a revelation that doesn't need the buildup: "Here's the thing:", "Here's where it gets interesting", "Here's the kicker". One is fine for emphasis. AI uses them as load-bearing transitions — remove them and the paragraph structure collapses.

The Pattern

Humans use "Here's the thing" for genuine emphasis. AI uses it as paragraph glue.

Strip every "Here's the thing" / "Here's the kicker" / "Here's where it gets interesting" from a piece of AI text and watch the paragraphs fall apart. They stop connecting. That's because these phrases aren't emphasis at all — they're structural transitions wearing a costume. The drumroll promises a revelation, but what follows is always the next routine point. Never an actual surprise.

Sean Kernan flagged this in his viral "13 signs you used ChatGPT" list: AI creates a feeling of constant escalation without ever delivering. tropes.fyi catalogs it as "Here's the Kicker" — named for the gap between buildup and payoff.

RLHF is the culprit. The "reveal" structure drives engagement, human raters reward text that feels like it's building toward something, and the model internalizes the form without the substance.

Examples

Triple drumroll Here's the thing about AI adoption. Here's where it gets interesting. Here's the kicker: none of it matters without trust.
Blog post transitions But here's the thing — most teams don't realize it yet.

And here's where it gets interesting: the solution was there all along.

Here's the kicker: it's simpler than you think.
The mundane reveal Here's the thing about productivity: it starts with showing up. Here's the real secret: consistency beats intensity. Here's what nobody tells you: it takes time.
LinkedIn format I spent 10 years in corporate consulting.

Here's what I learned:

(It's not what you'd expect.)

Here's the truth: relationships matter more than strategy.

The Research

54%
of long-form LinkedIn posts estimated AI-generated (where false drumrolls are prevalent)

Sean Kernan's "13 signs you used ChatGPT" went viral partly because this tell is so easy to spot. He pointed out that AI text escalates importance constantly but never arrives anywhere — the drumroll is permanent, the payoff absent.

tropes.fyi filed it under "Here's the Kicker" at the tone level. Their framing: the reader gets primed for a revelation and receives a platitude.

False drumrolls are part of a broader family of manufactured drama in AI text (see also: Everything Changes Everything, The Countdown Punch). RLHF rewards engagement signals over substance, so the model learns to build tension around claims that don't warrant any. Jodie Cook's ChatGPT ban list includes several drumroll variants under "False Directness" — phrases that simulate insight without containing it.

Caught in the Wild

LinkedIn AI Slop

LinkedIn is where false drumrolls go to breed. The "Here's the thing:" + "Here's the kicker:" formula shows up so often that it's become a community joke — parody posts now deliberately stack drumrolls to absurd effect.

Originality.ai →

AI Blog Content

Clients started flagging drumroll phrases before the agencies did. Multiple content marketing style guides now ban "Here's the thing" and "Here's the kicker" outright — they've become first-pass AI detectors.

Viral Substack Posts

Kernan's Substack piece and others like it made the false drumroll one of the first AI writing smells to reach mainstream awareness. It's easy to describe, easy to spot, and impossible to unsee.

Sean Kernan →

Sources