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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Why are people so into soaps? obsessed in some cases.

63 replies

vivizone · 19/03/2013 22:27

Like seriously into them. I hear conversations about the characters as if they ae real! A colleague saying "so and so is a bastard.Bianca is well rid". Haha I mean who cares? Then you get the people who actually BUY the soap mags to read about these pretend people!

My cousin's social life revolves around her not missing her soaps.I don't see her often now.

Wouldn't it just be better to watch reality shows once in awhile? Soaps take about 3/4 evenings out of your time. It's rubbish!

Apologies for any spelling mistakes. On phone and no spellchecker

OP posts:
LadyMaryQuiteContrary · 19/03/2013 22:30

Because sometimes, someone else's life, is far more interesting then one's own. I don't watch them, they bore me rigid, my mother does though {yawns}

imacowbaggetmeoutofhere · 19/03/2013 22:32

Yabvvvvu. I love hollyoaks, find the others a bit samey, and its my thirty mins of escapism every evening.

Catchingmockingbirds · 19/03/2013 22:36

I tried to watch them for a while when I had recently become a single parent and was trying to fill my nights, I found them too depressing so had to stop.

Darkesteyes · 19/03/2013 22:38

When i was younger (20s) i liked Eastenders and Hollyoaks. Then early to late 30s it was Corrie.

Now i dont watch any soaps at all. I prefer a good crime thriller (Whitechapel. Trial and Retribution etc.

LOVED Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes and Eternal Law. (all written by the same writers. And am looking forward to The Village which starts at Easter.

The soaps? As ive got older ive just grown out of them tbh.

MrsRajeshKoothrappali · 19/03/2013 22:44

I do like Hollyoaks, bit of drama/escapism. Makes me go 'Ooooooo!' and then I get on with my life.

Tend to watch it in a chunk on 4OD rather than every evening though.

And I don't really mind if I miss it.

sjupes · 19/03/2013 22:47

Uch i'm mid 20's and went off soaps in my late teens. Soooo boring, always spoilers in magazines which i don't read but i see in shops storylines that are just plain stupid aaaargh!

Unfortunately, dp loves them the daft git he is so i've had to put up with this heap of shite every night for years Angry

WyrdMother · 19/03/2013 22:50

I prefer my soaps in space.

I and a couple of equally nerdy work chums could have bored you silly on any one of the Star Treks/Stargates etc when they were on, we would have been overheard by people who I'm sure wrote us off as seriously sad loons.

My husband sometimes discusses railway or gardening shows with his mates.

If they expect you to join in or are being intrusively loud then your are not being unreasonable, otherwise it's all a matter of taste.

midastouch · 19/03/2013 23:01

i like emmerdale, corrie and eastenders. Theres not much better on tv! It does irritate me when people get worked up about things like its real!

Trills · 19/03/2013 23:04

YABU

MrsRajeshKoothrappali · 19/03/2013 23:05

I do remember the Eastenders Baby Swap Plot (don't watch it but things tend to filter through to me) when loads of people were up in arms about it and saying it was sick.

Funny how it never stopped any of them watching it. Grin

Surely if it offends you then you switch it off?? Confused

BegoniaBampot · 20/03/2013 01:32

Stopped watching all soaps about 8 years ago, thank god. Never again will I be sucked into their drivel.

JCDenton · 20/03/2013 01:51

Meh, I don't like them personally but a lot of people do, so good for them. I get miffed if people bash my entertainment choices or hobbies so I try not to do it myself. Missing real life things is really just the obsessive fan mindset every kind of hobby seems to have attached to it, it isn't representative.

glastocat · 20/03/2013 01:54

I love Corrie, I've watched it since I was a kid. I moved to Oz a month ago, and apart from family and friends, it's the only thing I miss! My mum is downloading them for me though. I don't watch any other tv really, well certainly not since moving here as Aussie tv is shite. It's like reading a novel really, sometimes the plots are good, sometimes the characters are interesting, sometimes not so much. I'm not sure why you say watching reality tv shows would be better though?

OkayHazel · 20/03/2013 03:44

Nothing wrong with a bit of escapism. Personally, I'd prefer people at work to be bitching about fake people than me.

Fraggle3112 · 20/03/2013 04:03

12 weeks ago I would have said YANBU however series linked emmerdale and corrie are the only things that have got me through bfing my DS, and only today me and my mum had the exact type of convo you mean about Sinita from corrie! Haha so just to make me feel better about myself and the fact I've become one of 'those' people YABU! Hahaha :)

SucksToBeMe · 20/03/2013 04:11

In my 20's I travelled all over the world working but since I've had DS I have become quite happily obsessed with the 3 major soaps!
I hardly watch anything else and go to bed once the last soap finishes Smile
I will eventually emigrate to a country which doesn't have them and I know i i wont miss them. But for now I enjoy them.

MrsTerryPratchett · 20/03/2013 04:12

It fills a need in us. 100 years ago we would have known all our neighbours and their business and have gossiped about them.

Also, my small sample of people who have emigrated to Canada shows me that all UK people who emigrate to Canada watch Corrie. Not only do they tell me but Canadians say, "oh, you're from the UK, I suppose you watch Corrie". Umm, no. Explain that!

BegoniaBampot · 20/03/2013 08:07

But it is like an addiction. Many of us grow up watching, knowing all the characters. Moved somewhere I couldn't get them and went cold turkey and never looked back. Even when came back to the UK, never started again.

Owllady · 20/03/2013 08:11

I love emmerdale and corrie
eastenders I find a bit dark, but still watch it Blush !

Dh moans his head off but still watches them Hmm this might be in poor taste but it was on the news about micheal de vile and dh was nodding off and he said 'god that's disgusting he has lived with those girl;s for years and now lives in a flat with that baby on his own' and I was like 'wtf??!' He reminded me of the dreams and reality sketch on father ted

MortifiedAdams · 20/03/2013 08:18

I love Corrie. I hate reality tv. I suppose its like.books - when friends and I were reading Harry Potter we would say things like "can you believe Harry kissed Cho?!"

We know its not real; we just enjoy it and want to talk about it.

OP YABU for promoting the utter shite that is Reality Tv.

Owllady · 20/03/2013 08:19

My Garn made me laugh as well. She hates David Cameron and ranted about him at Christmas for a good hour and then she said

'and there's a Cameron in Emmerdale too and he is EVIL ASWELL!'

ha!

Icelollycraving · 20/03/2013 08:25

Thought you meant soap as in a bar of.
I love corrie & doctors. Both are drivel according to dh marvellous.

fluffyraggies · 20/03/2013 08:47

Used to watch soaps - don't now (just said the same thing about JK, on the JK thread Grin)

I was thinking the exact same thing the other day OP. I was standing in the queue in a shop looking at the mags with stories all dedicated to dicussing the lives of fictitious people and thought - ''Why? It's.not.real. Someone is getting paid to decide what happens next, and the actors are getting paid to act it out. It ain't all really going on''

I mean we don't see magazines in the paper shop speculating on the characters in Jayne Eyre or Watership Down do we? '' Oh God - was Badger right to let Ratty in that night ?''

And yet they're just the same - stories made up by someone else.

YANBU.

fluffyraggies · 20/03/2013 08:49

Wait, that was Wind in the Willows, ha ha ha,

but you know what i mean Grin

Sallystyle · 20/03/2013 09:13

I love Corrie and EE.

It's really the only TV I watch on a regular basis. I watch them with my older children so it is also time that we sit together.

I know it isn't real but I love going to digital spy to read the threads.

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