I do think it starts with the fact that it's perceived as a "women's medium", in a critical male world.

I think there's something about any genre that creates a separate world that really opens their fans up to some unfair generalizations. Sci-fi fans get hammered probably as much, if not more, than soap fans.

It's funny how stereotypes of the early years of television stick around even today. But on an episode of Family Guy, they do a soap reference where they have the dramatic organ music and the freeze frame of the characters while the announcer does the pondering of "will something happen?" in the next episode. And then the announcer says, "Will our younger viewers understand this soap reference?" because clearly this type of cliffhanger ending to a show is a thing of the past.

That announcer cliffhanger thing (which I found funny when parodied on Soap and Mary Hartman) isinteresting because it's a soap parody staple, and yet it never really happened in tv soaps. Radio soaps would often have the announcer say "Listen tomorrow to find out wha so and so said" or whatever, but ot the best of my knowledge TV soaps never did.

It's quite simple - because they've never - even in their prime - been up to par (writing and acting-wise) with their primetime counterparts. Look no further than soaps' countless attempts to bite off superior television shows and movies.

As much as I am entertained by them, I've never once taken them or the actors who are on them as seriously as I do with the primetime shows that I do watch.