Which storylines wouldn't have taken off had social media existed since the beginning of soaps?

[Manny]

I was thinking how soaps today are always playing it safe. There is barely no risk or barely any pushing the envelope. It seems that soaps nowdays are waiting for other media to push a topic into mainstream before soaps tackle it, while in the past it seems soaps were also telling these types of stories. One of the reasons why I think this is today is that network executives are afraid of negative social media reactions. While I know that network execs were probably afraid of negative outpour through letter campaigns back in the day, it cannot be the same, since it is so much easier to write a negative comment online than to sit down and write a letter and then go to the post office and send it. 

So thinking about this, do you think some stories would have been cut or would not have happened in the past had there been social media?

Would Erica have an abortion? Would there be interracial relationships of GH/GL/DAYS? Bianca's coming out storyline? Didn't ATWT have one of first divorces way back when?

So this just got me thinking... What do you think?

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[DramatistDreamer]

Hm, I'm not sure there's an answer for this since any response would be deeply speculative at best. 

Also, no idea happens before its time. The television and media landscape was vastly different than what we see and experience today. Would we have to assume that this landscape would be the same as it used to be, or what it currently is?

When I first glanced at this question, the thought that immediately came to mind is what if the soaps that had been cancelled in the last 20 years had had the benefit of social media, would it have bought many of them more time on air? Or would the distinct lack of support that most suffered from at the end of their runs render any social media campaigns ineffective? 

 

[titan1978]

It’s not just the advent of social media, it’s also the progression of understanding complicated issues that has happened over the years.  
 

Back then, think of how many tortured man rapes woman storylines we have gotten over the years.  They were never appropriate, but people now have a greater understanding of the violation involved and women have more agency over their lives.  Although there are still many issues with reporting and justice, back in the day people just didn’t talk openly about trauma.

Bill and Laura on DAYS- they even drove Mickey insane, and were still rooted for.  Luke and Laura of course.  Didn’t Jake rape Marley on AW, and yet her sister ended up with him?

Social Media seems to have no problem with Ben Weston being a tortured former serial killer, at least not enough that the story has changed in the slightest.

Increasingly I think they play it safe because the people producing them don’t pitch complicated storytelling because they can’t or no longer know how to pull it off.  The safety is in how easy it is to predict how to produce this dreck, mixed with working with the very real threat that the show could be axed at any time.

[Khan]

Agree!

[Planet Soap]

GH: Luke and Laura would definitely not have taken off due to that rape plot. 

Alan raping Monica in the heat of anger over her misdeeds at the time also wouldn't have slid. 

Sonny's abuse of Karen would have seen pushback from him becoming a leading man that's a "good" mobster. 

OLTL: Roger Howarth's Todd's reform and faking sexual abuse triggered DID to escape charges. TSJ Todd's abusive behavior to Starr & Cole as well as his "re-rape" of Marty by romancing her when she lost her memory may have been cut or changed due to social media pushback.

Edited January 8, 2022 by ironlion

[soapfan770]

I really don’t know how much social media has helped or negatively affected the soaps  at all to be honest at least espy in the last few years when you have folks at the helm who are talentless and ignore all criticism while the product they produce is now becoming universally panned (hello Y&R!).

If anything had it existed in the late 80’s and 90’s the backlash possibly could have mitigated some of the bad decisions made at various soaps i.e. JFP and Maureen Bauer but who knows for sure.

And unfortunately I hate to say this but even as primetime, cable, streaming services have progressed when it comes to gay male couple on a daytime soap the only “love scene” we’ll get is two guys jumping up and down on a bed high-fiving each other lol

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[j swift]

Agreed.

I think that writers may avoid certain topics because of concerns about backlash, but that was true prior to social media, but, in practice, I think that social media response has very little effect on planned storylines or characters.

One only needs to recall the "Otalia" fanatics of Guiding Light to see an example of how rabid fandom had very little impact on the focus of stories. 

We need to remember that even today when it is estimated that 70% of the topics on Twitter are related to television, still less that 20% of the population is engaged on the platform, and 70% of twitter users are male, which is not part of desired daytime demographic

[Kane]

Bianca's coming out isn't really pre-social media. Facebook and Twitter might not have been around yet, but message boards were and I remember a fan campaign that was organized on the old Television Without Pity board to bring attention to the Bianca/Lena pairing.

I'm not really sure social media would have changed much, if only because soaps had a sort of proto-social media even before the internet. Fans found each other through fan clubs and other means and organized letter writing campaigns and call in campaigns and organized efforts to send a specific item en masse to a show to demonstrate displeasure with something. If anything, I think that was probably more effective than social media as we know it now because you can cherry pick which segments of online fandom you want to pay attention to/cater to, but it's a lot more difficult to ignore receiving hundreds of cans of whatever at the office. The fact that it's easier to write an online comment is why it has less weight - someone had to feel really strongly about something to go to the trouble of writing a letter and mailing it, whereas a casual or sporadic viewer with little actual investment in a show might write a negative comment online because it's so easy.

I would like to think that a lot of the redeemed rapist storylines would not have happened if social media existed then, but as @titan1978 pointed out, society's understanding of things like consent has evolved since those storylines originally played out. I mean, women were screaming "Rape me Luke!" at Anthony Geary in the 70s and "Rape me Todd!" at Roger Howarth in the 90s.

[j swift]

Just as aside, much like I think Eileen Fulton's story about being slapped in a supermarket has become folklore, after listening to the Slate podcast about Marty's rape, I wonder if anyone actually said "rape me" or if Roger Howarth didn't want to be typecast as a rapist forever more?

Podcast:  https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2021/06/one-life-to-live-todd-manning

and the transcript : https://slate.com/transcripts/aVpLcjE1dXdHVmRQdmV1aVFlOXZFWGJ6aEN5eGxXeE9DNERYN05oWWZMaz0=

Someday soon we'll need a topic of soap opera urban legends culled from actor's hyperbolic stories in interviews over the years.

Edited January 9, 2022 by j swift

[DRW50]

I would agree, but people sure ate up the "Ejami" pairing.

[DramatistDreamer]

Also, YouTube counts as social media and it's been out since 2005, no?

You know what was the predominant social media since the television entered the consumer marketplace?

The telephone. 

I agree with the posters who express skepticism that getting on social media would actually change things. You know what does though? Consumer behavior. Money talks. When sponsors express dissatisfaction with a network decision or a program's storyline and they threaten to pull their sponsorship dollars, that's when things change.

Anyone interested in this topic, there is extensive reading material on this subject. 

 

[Khan]

Are you sure about that?  Are you REALLY sure about that?

Exactly.

[Vee]

They would never have executed Luke and Laura the same way today. Going for the rape twist at all and the way they bumbled around it with romantic foibles, jealousy, a lot of discussion among the two of them, etc. for over a year afterwards would never have happened.

You also couldn't get away with E.J. raping Sami at gunpoint in the passenger seat of a car on the side of a road and then having them become a supercouple today, and that was maybe 15 years ago.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Vee

[FrenchBug82]

I mean this is a very interesting question but to me it conflates "social media" with broader changes in social mores.
We tend to blame social media for a lot of societal ills - and by making it easier for people to communicate it does amplify voices that it once took a lot more time and work to grow. It is sometimes a good thing - like the progress popular culture is making on race or sexual tolerance - sometimes a bad thing - see the anti-vaxx disinformation and political conspiracy theories.

But in the end social media only reflects the society it is part of. It is not social media itself that makes a lot of the material that once flew by harder to imagine today and inversely it is not social media that makes stuff that wouldn't be OK then OK now.

Where I do think it might make a difference is to allow many opinions to express themselves so that executives realize it is not one-sided. It is usually the people pissed off about a storyline enough to write who get the last word so something like Neil/Victoria on Y&R back in the day was kiboshed because the racists cared enough to scream while everyone else shrugged because it was a pairing like any other.
Today the pushback if racists tried it online would be a lot more vocal and I reckon might shore up the resolve of a writing team if they wanted to go there. But the underlying truth is that our society is also collectively a lot more open to interracial relationships as a non-issue fact of life than it was even twenty years ago. So social media is not just the only reason it would be easier today.
Same for gay plots: it was once the homophobes who wrote in. Now the huge fanbase for these couples get to scream even louder online.

[Vee]

Gay story and Black story on soaps is still few and far between today, because outside of DAYS they don't cater to the more coastal online contingent much; they cater to red state demographics.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Vee