To add or not to add: Brainrot edition

Question

So I'm writing a book, and one of the characters is around the age of 15, and she is a time traveler who got stuck in the 90's.(Funny part is that that's not even the plot of the book) my novel is also a comedy/horror, and I just want to know if it would be weird or make sense to add Brainrot. The character is supposed to be the comedic relief, and I feel like she would sometimes just randomly say, "What the skibidi?" but I don't know if that should be in the book or not.

Answer 1

If it’s something the character would do, then go ahead, I guess. The only issue is that if it’s brain rot you’re likely to encounter a lot (a lot) of readers who will be sick as hell of it already, and they’re likely to put down the book when they see the same words there as they’ve been seeing on the Internet for years at this point.

Write whatever characters you want, but if your characters aren’t likeable or are so overtly annoying that it transcends the medium (i.e. they’re annoying to the reader, not just in-Universe), then don’t be surprised when nobody likes the story you’re telling with them.

Answer 2

The question is, what are you trying to achieve?

There are many famous novels that are (in part) written in something other than literary English. For example, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh is partly written in Edinburgh junkie slang. If you want your writing to be a portrait of a 15 year old teenager, including the way she talks, then using her language (including, possibly, "brainrot") would not only be appropriate but required.

If on the other hand you do not narrate the story from the perspective and in the voice of that character, then using "brainrot" outside of dialogue would probably feel incongruous.