Soap fans: what's so great about your stories?

They help me escape the loneliness.

Your inner Frau? Are you really gay, OP? The male flesh was plenty of reason to watch! I used to watch As The World Turns before it went off the air. The only reason I started watching was for the Like & Noah story, which had PLENTY of male flesh. I was in HS at the time....

Soaps are unique in that they air 5 days per week, 52 weeks per year. The plots aren’t resolved in 1 hour or 1 season; in their heyday , soap plots would slowly unfold over years , making the payoff much more satisfying.

Soaps are comprised of families with multiple generations-you get to know them like members of your own family , as you watch them get married , get divorced, have children and grandchildren, and eventually pass away. They almost become part of your family, especially since the majority are known to the public by their character’s name , not by their real name.

For gay fans like myself, I think as a closeted teenager you longed to have parents like Ruth and Joe on All My Children, or Mac and Rachel on Another World, or Kim and Bob on As the World Turns. Characters like that unconditionally loved their kids while giving them the guidance and discipline a child needs-you knew Kim and Bob wouldn’t have tossed Andy out of the house if he came out, for example.

When I was a kid growing up I watched the iconic gothic/horror soap opera Dark Shadows with a passion for its full 5 year run. I have since learned that many young gaylings were attracted to the show and to this day it has a large gay following. I belong to about 5 or 6 Dark Shadows fan groups on Facebook where it has a large following. I still love it to this day and it reminds me when I was young and uncomplicated and growing up in a small town.

R4 Carolyn suspensefully finds Barnabas's coffin at the Old House - and then is attacked and bitten by him shortly afterwards and falls under his power. Gotta love all those coffins on the show!

It started as a way to pass time with a chronically ill parent, but as a teenager, I loved them for lots of reasons.

I liked the more down to earth ones, the New York shows. People were attractive but looked like "real" people. Some of the people reminded me of neighbors or the adults I knew. As dumb as some soap things can be, the best shows were a cross between reading a really good book with multiple characters, and watching a series of plays by a repertory theater.

My favorites - Guiding Light, As The World Turns and Another World - all had runs like that, where they were just hitting all the right marks.

I also love history and context, so it adds something if you watch a story with characters where you know who they were before or what they did......can make it way richer than just Person A and Person B jabbering lines of dialogue at each other.

And yes, I watched those shows - especially teenage me - for the hot guys. Kelly Nelson's Speedo and Philip Spaulding's boner-filled gym shorts are forever imprinted on my brain.

Also, I totally cosign everything R3 said.

Scott DeFreitas once said it perfectly: "Soaps are a fantasy about a multi-generational family that works." It often doesn't work, and that tension between where it works and where it veers off course, that's where the drama lies. Those were always my favorite novels when I was younger. I still think there's truth to the saying "What else is there to write about but family?"

Ryan’s Hope is a favorite as well as One Life to Live’s Golden Years (1) the Karen Wolek housewife/prostitute with Judith Light on the witness stand crying and confessing for days (2) the Rape of Marty story line which introduced Todd Manning as frat boy rapist and (3) the gay teen angst with Ryan Philippe with an AIDS quilt episode. Great actors throughout the genre, Colleen Zenk on As the World Turns is a stand out, Michael Knight on All My Children, David Canary and so many others. A treasure trove of hot gay men: Tuc Watkins, the late Joel Cruthers, the late Dak Rambeau, the late Terry Lester, the young Kin Shriner Van Hansis among so many of vague sexuality and those stunning studs we wished were like David Gregory.

When I was a little kid I ate lunch every day with my grandparents during the summer. They loved The Young and the Restless (a show that I found painfully boring but as I loved both of them dearly - I never admitted as much) so I always watched it with them while we were eating. I remember the names of most the characters but forget almost all of the plot lines and story arcs. What I do remember rather clearly is that I could pick right up after missing those 9 months each year - as if the show never skipped a beat at all. Things happened so rarely on these shows that stories must have gone on for 2,3,4,5 years before any resolution of any particular story. What seemed to happen far more frequently than a plot resolution was an actor getting replaced for one reason or another. Thank you for the great memories - my grandfather passed relatively youngish after a heart attack and this takes me back.

Soaps are / were ensemble shows where the viewer could relate to at least one character and his or her story. And once you got pulled in you usually cared for other characters as well and what fucked up things they had to go through.

A friend of mine said that soaps are basically a variation of the sordid gossip talk at brunches and luncheons amongst the gays and the socially active ladies and housewives. You know, the "did you hear about ...".

A soap writer told me that they take five days to describe one day in real life.

I wanted Connie Ford to eat me out.

Remember when Miss Hansis told OUT magazine that he’s straight??? lol We all had a good chuckle about that.

[quote] Scott DeFreitas once said it perfectly: "Soaps are a fantasy about a multi-generational family that works."

A thousand times this! I was a lonely latchkey child who longed for a family. I would have loved to be a member of the Bauer or the Hughes families. I used to have dreams I was.

My mom used to watch Y&R, All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital. While I could avoid taking naps if I was going to be quiet, I hated ABC soaps so much I didn't even bother. They were so boring to me and I couldn't figure out the appeal at all.

However, things clicked for me when I had to stay home for a week after getting my tonsils taken out when I was 10 (early '90s). The only soap my mom watched that I halfway liked was Y&R, so my first day at home I ended up watching that. Long story short, it's hard to describe how good that show was in the 1990s. The cast was beautiful, everyone fought, Nikki was a drunk, Lauren was a slut, Victor and Jack were at each other's throats all the time, Drucilla was hilarious, Phyllis and Michael Baldwin was psychotic...I loved it. But my favorite character was psycho nurse Sheila Carter...she was so awesome I became a fan of B&B (which was previously never watched in our house) when she crossed over.

Unfortunately, after 30+ years of watching soaps, I seem to be completely cured of my enjoyment of them. I've been working from home since early March and haven't made a single attempt to watch Y&R or B&B. For me, I got tired of Y&R constantly abandoning more fun/interesting chatacters (Adam, Patti, Chelsea, Ashley) to focus on fucking Victoria, Billy, Abby, and Lily (the only one of those characters I've ever liked was Billy...back when he was portrayed by David Tom in the late 90s/early 00s). Also, for some reason the former dirtbags of Y&R tend to evolve into sanctimonious, obnoxious prudes...and listening to them constantly judge others became a joke (Nikki, Michael, Kevin, Phyllis).

I officially gave up on B&B when it seemed like Brooke was going to fuck yet another Forrester (Thomas...the son and grandson of her ex-husbands). Plus with Stephanie and decent villains off the canvas, and an over-emphasis on the lame ass kids of way better characters, I had to tap out.

[quote] A friend of mine said that soaps are basically a variation of the sordid gossip talk at brunches and luncheons amongst the gays and the socially active ladies and housewives. You know, the "did you hear about ...".

This. Apart from the many other good reasons already mentioned, soaps create a community of "mutual friends" about whom you can gossip with other viewers.

"Say, did you hear about Cass Winthrop?"

"Cass Winthrop! I know him! What's he up to now?"

[quote] A friend of mine said that soaps are basically a variation of the sordid gossip talk at brunches and luncheons amongst the gays and the socially active ladies and housewives. You know, the "did you hear about ...".

So, water-cooler chit-chat at work. For Fraus.

I’m so glad the Trump loving Kimberlin Brown’s return to B&B was a huge FLOP a couple years ago. Daytime doesn’t want her ilk.

R18 Is intimately acquainted with the life stories of innumerable porn stars.

"You are my way..."

I watched only one soap - the last 3 or so years of The Edge of Night.

I used to watch when I came home from my college classes - or, if I were running late, I would watch at the Student Center.

Unlike other soaps, the EoN stories often revolved around murder, kidnapping, blackmail & corruption - call it soap noir.

Plus, it was fun knowing that one of the cast members was in porn and had a huge dick.

I'm in my forties and I have never known another gay man of my generation who watched soaps, except for one flaming queen in college in the 90s. I'm guessing the DL soap fans are all Boomers.

That would be incorrect R23. I am in my late 40s, a GenXer, and I have been obsessed with soaps forever.

In the classic days of soap, TPTB planned the show with the idea that the average viewer watched the show 2 or 3 times a week. Even in the days when most women stayed home, they weren't always home every single day. So the plan was you do your big "A story" 3 times a week and used the other two days for recap and to build the B story (the simmering story) and C story (the story on the backburner that was building). Plus you had time to tell every beat of a story, which is why soaps had the reputation of being slow. The best soap stories played out over years, not weeks.

The dismissal of soaps is yet another thing rooted in misogyny, because the form was deemed as disposable entertainment for women and therefor substandard and not valid. Soaps were the backbone of the big three broadcast networks. Up until about the mid 90s they were nothing but profit and paid for primetime and primetime development.

The NYC soap actors all used soaps to supplement their theatre careers. The LA soap actors used soaps to get their SAG cards and the build reels.

There have been many hits and misses over the years and some missteps, but when soaps are good, there is nothing better at showcasing the complexities of human emotion or following a character from birth to death.

R24 Another late 40s GenXer here. Began watching soaps in the mid 80s when Santa Barbara premiered. Became an Another World fan because it was on before SB and got intrigued by some of the hot actors.

My family and I also watched Dallas throughout the 80s.

R11 R17 Yes!

As a kid, and the youngest of many cousins (twenty years youngest for some cousins) we would go to big family gatherings and I'd just sit quietly and watch the dynamics play out as people gathered, and a good soap will make you really feel like you are sitting in someone's kitchen, overhearing them talk, watching life.

I remember reading this and thinking "oh, him too?" I had the same dreams, or similar.

It was good soap when Serial Nutjob Monticello was rejected by Spicen.

I think, in the old days, with gays these soap families became their alternative family after being rejected by their real family or just ghosting their real families out of fear of being rejected by them.

Most primetime shows are soaps now, so if you watch Cobra Kai, you're watching a soap

Even star Ralph Macchio called it a "Karate soap opera"

That's true R30, but this is nothing new. The greatest soaps were always prime time - Dallas, Knots Landing, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, etc. in the 80's and Melrose Place and others in the 90's.

R31 the original Beverly Hills 90210 too

What's annoying about soaps is that there are characters you absolutely don't care about and you have to watch it just because some others on the show and their storylines are fascinating. Erica Kane, as an example did nothing to me, but I always was glued to the TV when Adam and Brooke, Stuart and Marian came on or what Opal, Phoebe, Palmer and Walt Willey's character were doing.

I have zero idea why Susan Lucci became a soap star. Even in interviews she was extremely annoying.

[quote]What's annoying about soaps is that there are characters you absolutely don't care about and you have to watch it just because some others on the show and their storylines are fascinating.

On Y&R, I skip Kyle / Summer / Theo / Lola. It made absolutely no sense that Kyle dumped Lola for Summer. Theo makes no sense, period.

I mostly don't watch Phyllis / Nick or Abby / Chance.

Adam and the people it takes to tell his story, that's about it. I watch on cbs.com, and I slide the bar across the video until I see someone I can bear to watch.

R23 I’m an early Gen Xer. My mom watched soaps and I got hooked on the Guiding Light In the late 70s/early 80s. She went back to work and I’d secretly watch it after school. I never let on because I thought it was too gay for a boy to like soaps.

In college, the ABC soaps were super popular with female and lots of gay male students so I watched All My Children and One Life to Live. I never liked General Hospital even when it was the highest rated show.

General Hospital is the only show I watched and I really enjoyed it at the time.

When a school mate got home around 3:20, his grandmother was watching "General Hospital." He wasn't allowed to speak until a commercial came on.

r10, being a kid and assuming i'd watch soaps with old people was a given that i've never though much about.

A lot of actors are doing soaps just so they can do theater on the side. Theater actors are also better at remembering tons of dialogue is a very short time.

A lot of actors are doing soaps just so they can do theater on the side. Theater actors are also better at remembering tons of dialogue is a very short time.

R39/R40 that was true when soaps were in NYC, but they no longer are

The Yawn and the Repulsive. Boring show came back with new episodes and even Days had more women 18-49 watching.

,hbhh

[quote][R39]/[R40] that was true when soaps were in NYC, but they no longer are

Maybe that's why soaps aren't as good as they used to be in the 80s and 90s.

I watched the ABC soaps religiously from 1986-2000. Those were amazing years with great actors and iconic storylines. AMC - Natalie in the well, Natalie and Ross at Cortlandt Manor, ErIca and Kendall, Who Killed Will?, Adam gaslighting Dixie, Nina and Cliff, Adam blackmailing Erica into remarrying him, Liza returns to town. OLTL - everything Tina and Gabrielle, AIDS quilt, Marty’s rape... it was a magical era. Loved every second.

The fun thing about watching soaps as a teen is the characters spewed out the kind of vitriolic dialogue you imagined you’d use as an adult.

Then you grew up.

I'm watching some old AMC episodes on youtube atm and what strikes me the most is how bad the acting is and how repetitive the stories are. The actors read their dialogue from cue cards often and it's all verry messy and bad performing. I don't understand how people could follow soaps day after day for decades.

Phoebe Tyler never used cue cards! lololololololol

People watch soaps for different reasons. I remember as a kid seeing Edge Of Night when the Stephanie Martin murder case was on. It was must-see TV for me, because every day brought a new suspect and I didn't want to miss any of it. Dark Shadows is what every kid ran home from school to see...vampires , werewolves, ghosts, witches...what else could you ask for? Another World brought us the first great triangle Steve, Alice and that conniving bitch Rachel (Robin Strasser). As The World Turns, though, was the gold standard for me, especially during the Marland years...the acting, the pacing and two great divas, Lucinda and Barbara!

It's a cheap product, there's no time for the actors to learn their lines, no time for multiple takes so they can get the dialogue right, no time for lighting a scene propperly, no time for developing interesting stories. So they recycle stories over and over and over again, just with different actors.

Walt Willey did an interview once, can't remember on which show and he basically said soap actors are very efficient and if Hollywood would hire soap actors they could churn out 4 times as many movies.

Ridiculous statement, because in a proper movie you can't get away with not delivering your lines pitch perfect, having cadence and inflection not right.

I understand soap actors defend their product because for them it's a job with a steady paycheck and secure employment in a fickle industry and people like Lucci, Canary and Co probably got very rich over the years.

But, at least for me as I'm a bit of a movie buff, soaps are really a cheap product and not something that's enjoyable to watch.

R50 true but then nighttime soaps came along, doing the same type of storylines as daytime soaps, but with huge budgets and better production values, acting, direction etc.

Nighttime soaps were almost cinematic

All of that may be true, but there is no way to compare a film to the immersive experience of watching a continuing story five times a week, 52 weeks a year, for 20 or more years. You know these people. You root for those you like. You hiss those you hate. You remember the adults being children hearing advice from their grandparents. Their holiday celebrations bring to mind your own family's.

There was nothing like As the World Turns, Guiding Light, Search for Tomorrow...

Sure, I understand what you mean R52, but it's not just the bad acting, it's also the forced story telling because the show must go on. How many times can this actor and this actress fight and make up until it becomes annoying and tedious. The fabricated drama just isn't interesting anymore after a while.

I have to catch up on my ‘stories’.

I gave most shows a chance, but The Bold and the Beautiful was the only show that really enthralled me in its early years. I loved the pace of it, and that it did not require a major investment of time, but it was still satisfying.

From Stephanie's tantrums, to the first time that Brooke ever went "intergenerational" (I think it was the brother first, and then the dad...) When the storylines started to become less interesting I was in denial and hung in there. It was not the writing that changed as much as the characters.

The obvious shift, later on, was when the Kardashians were taking off, and the characters changed from being romantic to being presented as crude and petty. That recent porn actress who had played sweet Jessica back on the show's golden age was another case of salt being rubbed into my memories.

We loved Dark Shadows and General Hospital. I also like Belle in, I think, Days of Our Lives? She was someone's mistress and everyone treated her like she was....well, Melania! On GH we loved long-suffering Jessie and slutty Audrey.