CNN does this interesting piece with interesting reflections on the Sal9000 and Nene Anegasaki (Love Plus) Wedding:

Shure most people nowadays will just shove it off as some japanese otaku weirdo that’s too timid to go after a real girl etc etc, but reporter Kyung Lah goes a little deeper into the question showing that while this might be a little odd now, it also can be the very start of a tendency of people getting related more to virtual beings than real ones.
As I’ve seen in lots of otaku documentaries and stuff, what seems to happen is that these anti-social oftenly shy and recluse people finds in virtual characters and friends relationships that are more confortable and less prone to bad surprises and judgements.
Despite Sal9000 there being an extreme case going as far as a simulated marriage and total dedication to the character, it’s becoming less and less a far fetched idea not only in Japan but also in the rest of the world of people turning the virtual world his/her only contact or at least the main contact with the outside world.
If this is bad or good, I won’t be the judge… today’s society standards certainly looks at it as something odd and weird.
But at least in some cases, I’m not so shure it’s as bad as the news makes it look…

Source: SankakuComplex (NSFW)