2009: A Love Odyssey — Looking Back on Sal9000
Let me set the scene.
The year is 2009. Emos weren't ironic yet, cell phones and music players had yet to merge into a single device, Jersey Shore...definitely existed!
Also, a Tokyo man livestreamed his marriage to a video game character, and it was a little bit of a shock.
Yes, before Akihiko Kondo, before the rise of Reddit's strong 'waifu' support groups, one gamer dubbing himself Sal9000 tied the performative knot with Nene Anegasaki of Konami's Love Plus, the virtual beauty with a name that no news reporter would even attempt to pronounce. And honestly, he was kind of a visionary — so let's talk about that.
To state the obvious, the ceremony wasn't legally binding, being observed by a few of Sal's close friends and fans of the game. According to various reports, there was a priest there, but he, much like the other attendees, knew that it was all in fun and may or may not have been wearing a panda costume (it's complicated — different sources have different accounts).
The entire ceremony happened live on Niconico, which enabled the spectacle to go viral internationally. Everyone wanted a piece of his mind: CNN, Huffington Post, and Fox News mostly took a respectful, levelheaded approach, while Cracked showed up to the party four years late with their classic brand of irreverent humor. Not only were they giving him a chance to speak his mind, it almost seemed as if, on that day in 2009, they listened. There was something surprisingly lucid about mainstream media's coverage of Sal9000's marriage, even if the greater aspects of 2D love had yet to really be explored by anyone outside the community.
And maybe, just maybe, they would listen to me, too.
The year is 2009. Emos weren't ironic yet, cell phones and music players had yet to merge into a single device, Jersey Shore...definitely existed!
Also, a Tokyo man livestreamed his marriage to a video game character, and it was a little bit of a shock.
Yes, before Akihiko Kondo, before the rise of Reddit's strong 'waifu' support groups, one gamer dubbing himself Sal9000 tied the performative knot with Nene Anegasaki of Konami's Love Plus, the virtual beauty with a name that no news reporter would even attempt to pronounce. And honestly, he was kind of a visionary — so let's talk about that.
To state the obvious, the ceremony wasn't legally binding, being observed by a few of Sal's close friends and fans of the game. According to various reports, there was a priest there, but he, much like the other attendees, knew that it was all in fun and may or may not have been wearing a panda costume (it's complicated — different sources have different accounts).
The entire ceremony happened live on Niconico, which enabled the spectacle to go viral internationally. Everyone wanted a piece of his mind: CNN, Huffington Post, and Fox News mostly took a respectful, levelheaded approach, while Cracked showed up to the party four years late with their classic brand of irreverent humor. Not only were they giving him a chance to speak his mind, it almost seemed as if, on that day in 2009, they listened. There was something surprisingly lucid about mainstream media's coverage of Sal9000's marriage, even if the greater aspects of 2D love had yet to really be explored by anyone outside the community.
I, myself, have played Love Plus before, quite a few years back with the help of an English fan translation. While I didn't find myself personally attracted to any of its three bachelorettes, I did genuinely like all of them. They felt like my friends, the classmates I passed by every morning, or my coworkers — and during my relatively short time with the game, Sal9000's story lingered in my mind. I understood why he fell in love with Nene, my spirited supervisor. I understood that his feelings were much the same as mine, and I hoped that I would one day capture the same audience that he did.
And maybe, just maybe, they would listen to me, too.
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