Is watching soaps working class?

[crochetmonkey74]

Just as I say really. I'm an avid soap watcher, grew up very poor and on benefits, now comfortable and in a job where there are a lot of middle class people. At work someone said this as a sort of barbed joke but a lot of people agreed . What do you think?

Your thread feeds into the preoccupation of MN with class. Anyways I see no reason to perpetuate stereotypes. I personally would have ignored the comment and moved on.

I believe Diana, Princess of Wales was widely reported never to miss an episode of "EastEnders" and the Queen watches "Coronation Street". So, all in all, not very clear.

@Chocolattay

My parents are soap snobs who are obsessed with Corrie and Emmerdale but consider Eastenders chavvy.

They are working class btw, but not ‘chavvy’.

Ha! Love this. Eastenders is my favourite

I think viewers have changed. I believe 20m plus watched Eastenders in the 80s & now is a few million.

Most people stream shows & tv is a lot better these days.

@Ireolu

Your thread feeds into the preoccupation of MN with class. Anyways I see no reason to perpetuate stereotypes. I personally would have ignored the comment and moved on.

🤷‍♂️

@crochetmonkey74

The are both proud Northerners which I think is where the dislike of Eastenders come from My dad always said “Get these cockney wankers off my telly!”

Eastenders is my favourite though and the only one I watch. The others bore me.

Blimey, who cares. I love Eastenders but also have polo ponies and inherited silver.

I suspect if a survey were done, then yes, it would probably find that soaps are watched more by working class people than mc. Not that it matters, obviously! I'm from a mc background and I used to watch Neighbours when I was a teenager, but I've never watched soaps as an adult. I do sporadically listen to the Archers!

Ish

But of my aunts (who was pretty posh) loved Corrie when I was little, and at school (boarding /quite posh) we watched h and a and neighbours w devotion.

But mostly I’d imagine people who now watch soaps are old?

I think generally yes- it is a more working class pass time. However my most wealthy and privately educated friend watches Eastenders- probably as it is so alien to her own world.

If you want to be more MC, switch to The Archers, if you can take it (I stopped listening over 10 years ago)

@MurderAtTheBeautyPageant

Someone is probably googling to see if Nancy Mitford had an opinion on soap operas. They'll be with you shortly.

😂

Definitely a snobbishness around them. I wrote a piece of A-level coursework about regional stereotyping in soaps. Used to love watching before that but after I had to watch them all for weeks I wasn't so keen!

Bit you can learn a lot from watching them, and some of the writing is much better than lots of the new US stuff on Netflix (and a couple of awful series I watched recently on ITV, C4 and channel 5).

I bloody hope so. I’m working class ( and anyone who says different is dead to me) Northern and I’ve watched Emmerdale and Corrie for ever. And I listen to the Archers tho I want to throttle some of them. Whining Jennifer and her awful husband are top of the list.

It's also a takes time and commitment to follow soaps - I always think that they're on at the wrong time - when it's busy in a house / people getting home from work.
I miss Brookie

I remember when I was at University with some pretty posh people, we all used to watch Home and Away, Neighbors, EastEnders.

To be honest, it was more the Zeitgeist (mid 90s), and the fact that the internet had been barely invented, and I only new a couple of people with breeze block mobile phones!!

Yeah I definitely think soaps lean more towards a working class audience. Have a look at The Sun and The Mirror’s TV sections and see how much the soaps feature. Then compare with The Guardian and The Times.

I love Coronation Street and think we are reasonably middle class. My friend is what I would consider posh, and she would rather die than watch a soap.

Working class and proud of it! My mum was a cleaner, my dad worked in warehouse and we loved our soaps! Mum had us watch eastenders, corrie and brookie

Now I watch enders only and dad watches corrie only and we can have a whole conversation updating each other on what's happened. Not all the time religiously but you know when you see an advert and just want a quick update?? Well, my dad and I are the fountain of knowledge 🤣

Yes and even used to be a bit of a stigma for some people. Growing up I wasn't allowed to tell people my DM watched soaps all the time.
It's just silly snobbery. Drama and novels are about the same topics so it makes no sense to look down on soaps specifically.
Some people look down on all telly except very highbrow stuff though eg Newsnight, BBC4, documentaries and educational programmes (though I'd argue that soaps are educational too).
Daytime TV can be looked down upon as well as Saturday night light entertainment type things.

There's a book called Everything I Know I Learned from TV which is a good counter argument.

@CaMePlaitPas

No, what makes you working class is getting up in the morning and working for a living. If you like soaps you carry on watching them and never mind your colleague's dull, lazy attempt at humour.

Is it? Excellent. As long as I don't have to switch from The Archers to Corrie or stop going to the opera I'll happily sign up as one of the working class heroines of MN.

"I suspect if a survey were done, then yes, it would probably find that soaps are watched more by working class people than mc."

Yes, but some of the mc people would be lying!
It's a bit like men who say they don't watch soaps, but they know everything that goes on 'because the wife watches them'.

We are most definitely working class and never watch soaps. Although I did like the Sullivans when we came home for lunch from school

Lower middle / working, yes. Unless it's listening to The Archers.

I’ve heard it all now! Is there anything left that we could possible judge people for?

What is this absolute obsession with being working class or middle class?