Why do you watch soaps, and has the reason changed?

[titan1978]

I was thinking about the habit of daytime.  A lot of people have noted that it is a habit, and once broken it is easy to not return.

 

My first soap exposure was through a grandmother.  I choose to pay attention and watch for my own entertainment when Frisco pulled the hat off Felicia, at the beginning of their relationship.  I am a gay male, and I was attracted to the action storylines on GH and the strong women.  I soon watched other soaps that had similar themes (OLTL, DAYS).  I also turned for the men, which were usually attractive and often shirtless!

 

As I got older, I started paying more attention to the deeper stories, to the wider scope of themes, and to the beats being played.  Even on a plot driven show like GH, the best stories were well plotted and played out like the details mattered.

 

Around 1993 or so was when I became a fan of the genre.  I started sampling other shows, even if just for a few months.  I started buying soap mags, and absolutely loved when they would do issues devoted to the best soap stories of all time.  I watched all of them on the air from that point for at least a few months or years at a time, except B&B (Just cannot get into it).

 

When they started to decline through today- I watch less and less.  I tune in now if I am free and hear about stories or scenes online that might be good to watch.  I tune in when favorites return, usually for a month or so and quit again.  I tune in out of nostalgia, out of love for the genre, out of respect for the actors and characters I loved.  But there is no daily habit for me anymore, because the shows are so basic. But there is still something that compels me to check back in from time to time.

[All My Shadows]

I started watching as a child in 2001 because the stories interested me, and as came to learn more about the shows' pasts, I became even more invested in what was going on. Nearly 20 years later, I'm glad to actually be able to regularly watch so much of those older episodes because they're good, and it's great to be able to see so many stories and characters that I'd only ever read about back when I was still watching first-run soaps. It's nice to keep building familiarity with each soap.

[titan1978]

I know what you mean @All My Shadows!  I remember GL having quite a run at the Emmys in the early 1990’s, but I didn’t watch it until Rauch and the Annie storyline.  Now that I have seen quite a bit of 1990-1993, it really was an amazing show at that time!

 

Plus the Y&R classics have brought back so many memories of what that show used to be like.

 

 

[asafi]

I do not watch soaps anymore. there is really no Comparison to classic episodes of 80's and 90's.. the budget nowadays is ridiculous and therefore the horrible story-lines and acting.. 

[Markjeh]

I started watching ATWT in 2002 with my grandparents, but because The Netherlands was about +/- two years behind the USA these were the episodes that aired in the USA in 2000. I lost a bit of interest in ATWT around 2005 but never completely stopped watching, although progressively watched less until the very end. I never actually saw the last episode.

 

Then I watched OLTL for about a year but stopped before the final episode aired. I watched B&B for a few years after that, off & on, but now haven't really been a soap watcher for about 3 years.

 

I like to keep reading about firings/hirings and what's happening on what soap opera but it's never interesting enough to pull me (back) in.

[Faulkner]

I started watching because my mom and sisters watched. I loved the immersion into a world filled with fascinating characters, and there was a comfort in knowing that these characters would always be there every day at a certain time.
 

Certainly these past few months of working from home has reconnected me with the soaps, and I loved rewatching the classic episodes (well Y&R was the only that actually aired classics).
 

Like most of us here, I’ve had a lifetime of investment in these shows, and that’s hard to part ways with. Even in their depleted state, there is some comfort in seeing familiar faces and actors who can still bring it in spite of the diminished quality of the writing. I sometimes just have it on as background noise during the day, since it doesn’t require my full attention, and it’s better than the news, which I find harmful and manipulative. And I’m not sure I’d still be watching soaps if not for the community here. But I just tried to watch a bit of the new Y&R and turned it off. The dialogue on the show almost feels like it was computer-generated.

[AbcNbc247]

Same here. Started watching soaps with my mother and grandmother. But as I got older, I just seemed to love the style and structure of soaps. I even wrote my own soap for a while when I was younger.

 

I also enjoy the characters and the directions that their lives take. It is like having a sense of loyalty. Like Viki said on OLTL, they become our friends or extensions of our own families. No matter how bad the writing is, no matter how many stupid choices these characters make, I tune in just to see what happens to them because I want to know and I also want to see. 

 

And like @Faulkner said, it's too hard just to stop watching when you've invested so many years in the show. My memories of DAYS start from when I was 3. I've watched continuously since I was 9, and I'm 28 now. I probably couldn't give up soaps even if I wanted too.

Edited August 10, 2020 by AbcNbc247

[titan1978]

This really resonated with me.  I lurked and barely posted for a long time, from the early days of this site.  But in the last couple of years I just really wanted to invest in soaps again, and mostly that has happened here.  I have been directed to lots of classic episodes, and really seen a lot of stuff that I had only heard about or watched so long ago.

[GLATWT88]

My own journey with soaps started in 2003. I watched soaps with my sister a few times before then, but 2003 is when I started to watch on my own. Watching as a kid with my sister, I remember being so fascinated by soaps and that interest always stuck with me. Unfortunately, I was dissuaded from watching because of the perception that soap operas were girly. I randomly caught a bit of a soap one day and that pretty much convinced me to watch. I was so intrigued by the kind of storytelling in daytime, the way you invest in characters almost every day for the entire year. It was exciting and fun and it brought about emotions on both extremes. I remember being enthralled and shocked - it felt so exciting to go through all the twists and turns with a character. Eventually, life happened and it was hard to continue watching. Unfortunately, my end with GL was when the new filming and budget cuts made the show completely unwatchable for me. I still get upset that I didn't stick it out until the end, but part of me felt that somehow GL would always be there. I could come back and catch up with characters I have known so long, see what they were doing and how life was going for them. Sadly, GL is gone and I do miss those characters very much. A few years later I tried to get into soaps again and decided to watch BB and it was great for a while. The feeling wasn't the same as when I watched soaps around 2003 and 2007/8ish but it did the trick. I stopped watching again after a while. Now during this quarantine, I picked up watching soaps again. The classics were great and even Days had its moments. However, watching the last few episodes of GH, YR and BB before they went into repeats, it just didn't feel the same. Sure, I saw many familiar faces, but something was really off. Soaps had lost themselves in the midst of budget cuts, chasing ratings, changing to become what they believe younger audiences want to see, and uninteresting and uninspired writing.

 

I hadn't watch soaps in years by this point, but part of me wanted to invest again. To maybe get that feeling I once had while watching soaps or maybe from a fear that one day they will all be gone and I'll regret that I didn't take the time to watch. I have most recently moved out of the country, but I do come on here and read about the soaps. I don't have a way to watch the soaps from here, but I'm not sure I want to. Maybe it's for the best to just keep up with them on here for now. 

[Fevuh]

Y&R was the first I watched in the late 70s with one of my sisters and Mom and Granny.  Then I started watching both ATWT and GL because those were the ones my Mom and Granny watched and I grew to love them more than Y&R.  My sister converted to ABC; we stayed with CBS and had to fight over our only TV.  In the 80's we got a VCR and I taped them and would watch when i got home from school.  Taped when I went to college and throughout the 90s when I started working.  I watched because of the relationships - and GL for the 4 musketeers and when I was younger for the adventure and teen stories.  I loved Josh and Reva on GL.  I loved all of the Bauers and Lewises and Coopers.  ATWT and GL were so well written then.   Loved Steve/Betsy/Craig triangle, Lily and Holden, and the Snyders, and Kim vs. Lisa and Lisa vs. Lucinda.    Y&R I watched at first because I loved the Jill vs. Katherine rivalry and then I was a pre-teen/young teen and loved the Traci vs. Lauren rivalry, and who didn't love seeing pool boy Brad/Don Diamont with his shirt off?  LOL.  

Edited August 13, 2020 by Fevuh

[Faulkner]

The center of gravity of SON has really shifted to the Cancelled Soaps thread. Thankfully YouTube and other platforms have so much great old stuff, and you can rely on a lot of our scholars and long-time viewers to add context. And yes, in the past few years of upheaval, it’s been a comfort to re-invest in the genre, even if the current-day stuff is a snooze. There’s so much great stuff that came before I started watching in the early ‘90s. I wouldn’t have checked out old ‘80s episodes of the great British soap Brookside if not for the community here.

[asafi]

I live in Israel and started watching Y&R from late 80's.. the stories and characters were so good, I was just captivated! 

 

I also started watching DOOL and OLTL from 1993 episodes.. those were very good years.

 

I also watched AMC from 1994- again, it was good!

 

But soaps today are unwatchable.. unfortunately. so I don't watch. 

[Gray Bunny]

I got hooked on DAYS exactly 25 years ago, seeing a commercial for a possessed Marlena, "dead" in the morgue, holding John by his throat. And the commercial later insinuated she would barge into a church full of people (it was actually John carrying Marlena's lifeless body up to the altar). From that intrigue in wanting to know what the hell that was all about, I started watching and got hooked on Bo/Hope/Billie, Carrie/Austin/Sami, etc. 

 

In all honesty, I started watching B&B second, the following Spring, because I saw in the pages of Soap Opera Digest (thanks for buying them for me, mom!) that Lark Voorhies of Saved by the Bell fame was on it. So I checked it out. It was months before I finally saw her onscreen (cuz, you know, she's black... and it's B&B), but became interested in Sheila poisoning Stephanie, Brooke's brief insanity of hiding out in a hut in Barbados clutching onto 2 dolls she called Rick and Bridget. 

 

By summer of '96, I checked out all the other soaps and the one that stood out to me the most was Guiding Light. I loved the divas, namely Reva, along with Dinah (Wendy Moniz) and Annie (Cynthia Watros). So by the time I was 14 years old, I was watching 3 soaps on a regular basis. 

 

Nowadays, I watch out of loyalty to the shows, cast, particular characters, and for snippets of goodness in otherwise lifeless shows (DAYS, Y&R, B&B). I watch all of DAYS (I FF through the monotonous, repetitive stuff), and sample Y&R and B&B. Honestly, I preferred the classic episodes. CBS could air reruns in place of The Talk or LMAD and I'd be more interested in recording those instead. 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Gray Bunny

[titan1978]

This highlights one of the things I think soaps have been failing at since the youth obsessed late 1990’s era of network interference.

 

I also got hooked on shows through younger characters (Felicia and Frisco on GH were my first characters that I watched for me, not because my family was watching GH).  But I stayed because I loved Edward Quartermain’s rascally ways too.  I loved Lee Baldwin and Jessie and Gail and Steve Hardy.  I loved Alan and Monica.  The whole show had appeal.  I grew to love other things going on more than the couple that got me hooked.

 

I got hooked on Y&R because Jill and Katherine were being so nasty to Nina, even though she was no saint herself.  Without Katherine as a hook, I don’t know if I would care about that show enough to keep watching back then.

 

And yes, the sex appeal of Brad.  Or Bo on DAYS, or several other frequently shirtless men.  Nobody else On TV is as ashamed as daytime at this point to present sexy men often.

[Gray Bunny]

 

Pretty sure I realized I was gay thanks to Austin Peck and Peter Reckell 

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