Diary of a Soap Fan

It is hard for me to pinpoint when I started watching and liking the soaps at the same time. There is a difference between watching soap operas because you’re forced to and watching them because you like them. I have vague memories of being four or five years old and being annoyed at my great-grandmother for not letting me change the channel to watch cartoons because she was watching the soaps. I had to endure hours of boredom while she enjoyed her stories. Little did I know that as I’ve become older, daytime soaps would remain a part of my life.

My family is a big reason why I became hooked on to the soaps. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all watched all four the soaps on CBS: The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, As the World Turns, and Guiding Light. On the other hand, my two cousins on my mother’s side watched the daytime dramas on ABC: General Hospital, All My Children, One Life to Live, and any one of the other now-defunct soaps that used to make up the four-soap lineup. Before my adolescent years, I would watch the CBS soaps from time to time. The interesting thing about that period was that I was not a soap fan, but I knew the names of the characters and most of the storylines. This was because of the ongoing TV watching struggle from when I was a child with my great-grandmother and even with my grandmother to an extent. From the time period of 12:30 pm to 3 or 4pm, I not anyone else could disturb my great-grandmother as she watched her stories. This would have been fine by me except for a few things. For one thing, I was a kid, and kids like to watch cartoons. In my mind, soap operas were an integral part of the adult realm, and especially the female adult realm. I didn’t want to

watch stuff that involved sappy melodrama, kissing scenes or (Gasp!) sex scenes.

So what made me change my no-soap operas boycott? For one thing, I have two words: General Hospital. I started watching the soap because of my two female cousins who were practically raised on ABC’s soap operas. My cousins, who are 11 years older than me combined, had a big influence on my young mind. I used to take cues from them on many things, and soaps were one of them. Another reason was due to adolescence and all of its changes and confusion. To make a long story short, I was starting to have crushes with the boys at school and catty drama with the girls so much so that going to school everyday felt like going off to the battlefield. Soap operas were a refuge for me, an escape from the tough lessons of adolescence.

The irony of my soap watching was that the people who got me hooked on the stories stopped watching. Those who hate soaps would proabably say that this is the point when these people gained their sanity and I lost it (lol!), but what can I say? A lot of habits one learns comes from the home and family. Anyway, both of my cousins haven’t watched soap operas in years. My great-grandmother died and buried her soap-fanaticism with her, and both my mother and grandmother became born-again Christians who feel that watching daytime dramas is sinful and is at odds with their beliefs. So where does that leave me? Yup, you guessed it, still watching soaps. When everyone else jumped over the sinking ship that is soap-opera watching, I stay and will probably continue to stay. And with these changing times when it seems like many people like my family members have abandoned the stories, I as well as others choose to watch soaps, even if the ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean.