Soap Opera

Fandom
Name(s):	soap opera, soap, telenovela, novela
Abbreviation(s):
Scope/Focus:	drama, romance, comedy, adventure, supernatural, western, historical, period
Date(s):
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A soap opera or soap is an ongoing, episodic drama presented in serial format. The original soaps were on radio, but these days most are on broadcast tv, although with the decline of ratings, some are moving to the Internet and streaming platforms to become web series. Modern soap operas generally have several different storylines occurring simultaneously, with each episode advancing some of the storylines, that at certain times intersect in nuclei created specifically to unify these universes. Plotlines generally focus on relationships, sex, family drama, and emotional conflicts.

Notable Soaps

Brazil

Brazil Avenue, Trials of Lies, Rules of the Game, Hidden Truths, India: A Love Story

United Kingdom

Coronation Street, EastEnders, The Bill, Emmerdale

United States of America

All My Children, As The World Turns, The Bold and the Beautiful, Dark Shadows, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, Guiding Light, One Life to Live, Passions, The Young and the Restless

Germany

Verbotene Liebe, Alles Was Zählt, Unter Uns

Fandom

Soap operas are incredibly popular in many countries, and fans frequently ship the characters. Despite obsessive interest in many soaps, transformative fanworks are relatively rare.

In Brazil they are called novela or telenovela and the habit of watching these soap operas is intrinsic to generations, even stopping every people the country in the decisive chapters, such as the final episode of Brazil Avenue in October 19, 2012.

Brazilians are very passionate about their soap operas, and their interactions with the shows lead their creators to cut, add or change the course of the story given character according to the audience's reactions to them. As a country with a conservative history in many aspects, for many years only heterosexual couples were acclaimed, but as times changed, LGBTQ pairings became popular and highly loved/appreciated.

With that, new generations of soap opera lovers started to create many fanworks. One example is the ship Félix Khoury/Nicolas "Niko" Corona from the soap opera Trials of Lies, for whom fans made numerous fanworks such as fanfics, fanart and fanvids, most of them were made available on Nyah! Fanfiction and/or Spirit.

However, unlike Brazil, some other countries only started their fannish culture very recently or had it in small and discreet numbers.

Slash fandom and Soaps

In the 2000s some soaps began to feature m/m (and, more rarely, f/f) romantic storylines. Devoted fans of these couples would take only the scenes devoted to these characters and put them on Youtube, meaning that many other fans could catch up on the canon for their favorite supercouple without having to watch all those other storylines and characters that they weren't interested in. Some couples who achieved fandoms (outside their usual show's fandom) in this manner included:

• As The World Turns: Noah/Luke
• One Life to Live: Kyle/Fish
• Verbotene Liebe: Christian/Olli
• Alles Was Zählt: Deniz/Roman
• Guiding Light: Olivia/Natalia (usually called Otalia)

Pairings like Christian/Olli and Deniz/Roman are popular even with English-speaking fans who don't speak German, due to the work of fan translation efforts like the Eskimo Kiss Project.

Essays & Meta

• Soap Opera Fandom (essay) (2022)