Problems with the New York Times 2-D Love Article

So... I'm sure many of you heard about the story in the New York Times entitled "Love in 2-D" already (I don't follow the New York Times, but I first heard about it from DarkMirage's site).

(Nemutan the described 2-D girl in the article)

To give it some context (courtesy of some wikipedia searches :P), the New York Times is "the largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States", has been around for over 100 years, and the online site received 18 million visitors in only one month (stats as of December 2008). It appalls me that they would publish such biased literary dribble. It seems that objectivity in news is a thing long dead... The link to the full article is here.

Summarizing the article, they basically talk about this guy (Nisan) who carries around a 2-D pillow case with him and treats her/it as if they were going out. He brings the pillowcase to restaurants and pretends as if they were two real people eating (he orders food for her/it as well). They drive together and he tries to be respectful of her (ensuring he does not touch any of her/it's private areas). Throughout the article, she keeps using keywords that signal pedophilia to the reader.

However, my issue is not with the fact that the article was written, the guy actually exists and the 2-D love phenomenon does exist. It's the fact that the writer took a small extremist subsect of otaku culture and wrote as if all of otaku culture matched this man.

As a fan of anime myself, I do not go around eating and driving with a pillow case whom I believe to be my wife. In fact, of all my friends who do watch anime, none would match the description that the article gives. I am sure that even if you have ever been to any cities with a significant asian population (ie. Vancouver, Toronto, Tokyo, Hong Kong), you would have never seen a man like Nisan. That is because, they aren't the normal otaku. Many of us aren't even into the 2-D girls and focus more on the mecha side of anime. Even those who are into 2-D girls are not as extreme as the guy described. Lots of western society isn't very knowledgeable about Otaku culture and anime in general.

In conclusion, I am just disappointed with such a large newspaper writing with a total lack of objectivity. The only thing the article achieves is to spread fear to its readers of Japanese subculture and create inaccurate stereotypes of otakus.