Obviously it's fallen out of fashion, but it is/was just a shorthand way of writing "and" & it used to be pretty normal to just use it every time. It's not real

Obviously it's fallen out of fashion, but it is/was just a shorthand way of writing "and" & it used to be pretty normal to just use it every time. It's not really something you can use "excessively"; either you write "and" as "&" or you don't.