>potentially a catalyst and cause for waifuism to occur
no, if not desu it would've been something else Desu~
Chibis fawned over Kusanagi Motoko in '95 when the anime adaptation came out in the west, just to name one Desu~
I don't think the love of desu is a form of proto-waifuism or a catalyst at all, it would've happened anyway if it wasn't allready a thing back then Desu~
my memory fails me and I do not feel like diving through a decade or more of anime history and idoltry of anime characters Desu~
maybe it's true for /a/, I don't know Desu~