The thing abaout “waifu culture” is that most people do not actually think or act like fictional anime characters are real people. They do it to troll, or be funny, or act stupid, whatever. Like circlejerk subreddits or other online boards where there is some joke that gets perpetuated that everyone in the community thinks is hilarious but everyone outside thinks is stupid.

Yes, there are a tiny few that do, but not a significant number of people actually think that way.