ALL: What Do They Say?

[Eric83]

Let's see....

My mom stopped watching GL during the clone storyline in 1998, she left again in 2001 becuase she said it had gotten boring. In 2008, she left due to the production change.

My aunt is a homophobe, so she actually stopped watching OLTL becuase of Kish.

My other aunt was an avid ABC soap watcher, but stopped watching when she got a job.

My grandmother loves Y&R,and was a very loyal viewer. She just sort of got tired of watching and moved on to other option.

My dad also used to watch TEON, but sort of left soaps after it went off the air. He stuck around and watched GH for most of the 80's, but quit watching the early 90's.

I have very few friends that have actually watched soaps. The 3 I do know that have still watch them, their main soap is GH and they love Sonny Corinthos.

[beebs]

Yes yes yes! I've mentioned that to friends of mine who are enthralled by Glee. They have a hard time accepting this.

And as for Europe, it's funny. When I was in Holland, there was a huge number of people who were absolutely obsessed with ATWT, that is a huge soap in that country, and there's no shame for them in that.

[Sapounopera]

Most of my friends stopped watching because of too many recasts and new characters.

[quartermainefan]

They say

"Too stupid" "I can't stand that guy who wants to be Al Pacino" "why is everyone dressed in black?" "These shows used to be so much fun." "Do you think these people think they are good actors?"

[SFK]

A lot of relatives on both sides of my family watch soaps, it's as normal to them as reading the paper. Especially for the retired ones. But my dad for instance, his viewing ebbs and flows. He caught a lot of the first years of AMC in his late teens/early twenties with his parents who worked from home. Then as he moved out and started working, following a soap just fell out of his routine and even in those pre-VCR days, he was never THAT into it to play follow-up. Then he married my mom, an AMC watcher since day one, and he was back to being a passive viewer when my mom would record and watch it in the evenings.

And a soap can have a particular creative period that strikes interest in a casual viewer. My uncle was a HUGE fan of Gabrielle on OLTL, he thought she was so sexy and he loved watching her scheme. He really got into OLTL during that time in the late '80s/early '90s, and then it all just kind of faded out for him. As a matter of fact, Gabrille was quite popular with African-American viewers, I'd say men in particular. One of our local R&B/urban pop radio stations did a parody song in her honor, "Gabrielle Medina", which was to the tune of Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina".

[Sylph]

Thank you, everyone! These have been fascinating, I loved reading everyone's replies, I never expected so many different reasons!

[EricMontreal22]

Agreed, though I think this comes and goes so I'd take objection to your term "somehow soaps became trashy". If you read the old press the stigma against anyone but "unedcuated housewives" being into soaps was at by far its strongest in the radio soap days. By the 70s the press started to become kinda obsessed with people like college campuses studying soaps, etc--in fact the stigma may have been at its lowest in the leate 70s/early 80s

[beebs]

Definitely in that period. Just look at the number of huge stars in film, TV and music were on GH in particular during that period, and got a name for themselves directly because of their work on that show, not necessarily for what opportunities came after they left.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to think soaps have eaten themselves in a way. Because of the success of the 70s and 80s period, prime-time drama picked up on it and used it in series people wouldn't neccesarily consider "soaps". The continuing narrative story format is so a part of prime-time now where it wasn't as much in 1975-85 when soaps were at their mainstream peak, that they're seen by the mainstream press as somewhat redundant, perhaps?

Look at that CBS report they aired on Love Of Life's last day on the air. It made a specific point that the characters in daytime grew, changed, moved in ways that prime-time TV characters didn't at that time. You could never say that of primetime nowadays, and even the primetime shows that were like that in the 80s were very clearly soaps, which they definitely aren't in many cases today. And Ugly Betty and Glee are definitely perfect examples of that. The soapy elements of those shows is a relatively new thing. And I think people's attitudes now reflect that shift that primetime's grown up while daytime's regressed into self-parody.

[EricMontreal22]

Oh definitely. Except for a few successes like Peyton Place and then Dallas and all the shows that followed it, primetime shows very rarely had any serial element at all--they liked to make it so you could virtually watch any episode in any order--so at the end of the half or full hour, the story and characters would essentially have to return to where it was. Rumour is one reason so few serials were tried after Peyton was because it was such a big flop with syndication sales--and networks didn't want to lose those (back then, especially, they made much of their profits on shows purely from syndication).

I think it was partly the growing mainstream acceptance of soaps and of course the massive success of Dallas, etc, that led to primetime adding this element (ironically of course Dallas also in its way influenced daytime soaps). You first see it in shows many wouldn't call soaps in the early to mid 80s--the examples often given are Hill Street Blues (one of the first cop shows where the cops actually seemed to have a life) and in the 30 min format, Cheers, then St Elsewhere, etc, etc. Now of course, it's rare to find a show that doesn't have some element of this--even the procedurals like CSI and Law and Order, to varying degrees. But I agree, in a way that ate away at the soap viewers (though there's certainly something to be said for watching a show unfold daily, and not in 22 episodes a year).

[TC]

I don't want to get into this nostalgia too deeply.

I was born in 1968 so that makes me a lot older than most people here.

My father was a tenured philosophy professor and my mother is a psychiatrist.

My father wssn't much of a soap viewer in the 70's. After his retirement, in the early 90's he became fixated on Y&R "because of the babes" He died in 1997.

My mother would make sure her schedule was free for ANOTHER WORLD at 3pm back in the 70's. It was the "acceptable" soap for academics and professionals. LUKE and LAURA put an end to that.