Soap operas’ detractors usually cite the same critiques of the genre, calling out the over-the-top drama, the frequent recasting of characters, the workmanlike production design and cinematography, and the overuse of narrative tropes.

“In this country, there is a cultural hierarchy, and soaps are at or near the bottom,” Jane Feuer, an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh, told the University Times in 2002, a time when such shows were a bigger part of the pop-culture conversation than they are now.

But soaps have endured for decades, and they might even be making a comeback: Broadcast TV got its first new daytime soap in a quarter-century this year with Beyond the Gates. And in a new Reddit thread, the genre’s fans are rallying to its defense.

The conversation started after a Reddit user questioned the popularity of soap operas, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of scorn. As they pointed out, General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, and The Bold and the Beautiful have thousands of episodes to their names and have been airing for longer than many of their viewers have even been breathing. “My question is,” the person wrote, “what’s the appeal and how are [there] still viewers of them?”

The characters feel like family

For many soap fans, the biggest draws are characters they’ve been watching for hours a week for years and sometimes decades. With that kind of history, a soap opera feels “lived in,” one Reddit user said. “There are characters who were born and lived and became adults on these shows. It’s like following a community that grows with you.”

Another agreed, writing, “This is the biggest thing. It’s hard to replicate on any other show. [There are] characters on some of these [for whom] the audience saw the parents get together, go through the pregnancy, have the kid, [and] watch the kid grow up and go through a bunch of major formative moments, and now they are one of the main characters on the show taking the mantle from their parents.”

And a soap opera’s viewers have aged alongside the characters, one person pointed out: “So in a way, you got to live with these characters on a day-to-day basis. Doing this made the viewers feel more invested in their personal stories over time, and how relationships grew.”

Another Reddit user echoed this point, saying, “It just feels like family at this point. They are people you have been watching for decades.”

In a 2023 Psychology Today essay, clinical psychologist Lynn Zubernis, Ph.D., explained the science behind the quasi-familial bond between soap character and soap fan. “Fans’ long histories with the characters contribute to their emotional attachment,” Zubernis wrote. “We’re drawn to familiar faces and feel a satisfying sense of belongingness when we’re with people we’ve known for a long time — even if they’re fictional. Because our brains are wired to attach to familiar faces, fans have a strong attachment to soap opera characters, who are seen five days a week.”

Viewers can jump in at any point

If you haven’t watched a given soap opera since the beginning — or even at all — it’s not hard to get hooked. “You can usually start at any point and be able to figure out what’s going on,” a Reddit user wrote.

Another added, “There are comic books that have been running since the 1930s and ’40s, but no one’s asking, ‘How are people still reading Superman?’ It’s the same thing, for the most part. Many viewers jump in whenever, get up to speed on the backstory, and just continue watching.”

And because of that narrative accessibility, anyone can tune in when soap operas delve into important social issues, one person explained: “[A viewer] doesn’t necessarily have to understand the last four weeks/months’ worth of story arcs to tune in to an issue that highlights awareness.”

In a 2011 Maclean’s article about TV-viewing completists, Jaime Weinman observed that soaps are tailor-made for infrequent viewers and newcomers. “They’re constantly getting new followers who, after a few episodes, are completely aware of who these people are and what they want,” Weinman wrote. And compared to more theme-heavy TV serials, soap operas “are almost completely plot-driven, and all we need to catch up on are the details of the plot.”

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It’s comfort viewing

Because soap operas have such low barriers to entry, viewers don’t even need to pay close attention to what’s happening. They can tune in and tune out — literally and figuratively — and have little trouble catching up.

“It is comfort viewing,” someone wrote on Reddit. “[Soap operas] started as a way for stay-at-home moms to take a load off and relax for a few hours.”

Another viewer added, “Originally they were meant to be watched while doing household chores and easy to follow even if the viewer missed an episode or two. They’ll repeat setups for reveals several times over a few episodes, [and] characters will explain to other characters things that have already happened, just in case the viewer missed yesterday’s episode.”

One person likened soap operas to background viewing, writing, “Do you like putting on Netflix or a YouTube video when you do other things?”

And such comfort TV can be a bonding experience for generations of fans under one roof. “For me, watching soap operas with my mom and nana quickly became a comforting tradition to look forward to and a welcome part of my daily routine,” TODAY’s Chrissy Callahan wrote last year. “Even now, I feel a sense of nostalgia whenever the theme music for The Young and the Restless starts playing.”

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The writers and actors achieve Herculean feats

Love them or hate them, you at least have to appreciate the hard work soap opera writers and actors — and all the other employees on set — put into each hour.

“Soap fans are notoriously hard to please, which makes [writing a soap] pretty much impossible,” a viewer wrote. “Rely on legacy characters too much? You get attacked by younger viewers. Try to introduce new characters? You get attacked by longtime fans for ignoring their favorites. That’s not to mention a decreasing budget every year. It is definitely a difficult job.”

A Reddit user recalls seeing literal archives of a soap’s backstory in a behind-the-scenes TV special for that program. “I’ll never forget them showing ‘the library,’” that person wrote in the thread. “Every script bound up by month and year, cross-referenced with a ‘family’ CliffNotes-type thing, so if Tom John slept with a maid in 1985 who was never shown again, here’s their kid in 2005 romancing their own cousin and not knowing it.”

Another user also gave soap actors “a lot of credit,” explaining, “They have a lot of lines to deliver.”

The aforementioned Feuer also sang the praises of soaps, saying, “It is a very specialized art form, with an audience connoisseurship as discriminating as other art forms like opera and ballet.”

And Nicholas Mancusi, whose grandmother was Ryan’s Hope co-creator Claire Labine and whose mother is longtime soap writer Eleanor Mancusi, emphasized the rigors of soap opera production in a 2019 Lit Hub defense of the family business: “When I hear the term ‘soap opera,’ the first thing that comes to mind isn’t evil twins or sudden amnesia but rather the effort that it takes to create four new narratives each week, something like 260 hours of television a year, and to do it a way that keeps an audience invested for decades, for an actual lifetime.”