The Young and the Clueless

So-called "intelligent" people love to look down on soap opera fans. Those shows are so awful, so preposterous, they say, there's no way anybody with a brain could watch. How could a reasonable, thinking adult get caught up in the petty little dramas of people who bear absolutely no relation to themselves?

Ask a sports fan. They're waaay stupider than soap fans, and I'll happily enumerate the ways.

• Soap fans don't spend half their work day creating imaginary shows populated with their favorite characters, and then guess which one would be better.
  
  
  
• Anthony Geary was ridiculously popular, but you didn't see guys wandering around New York wearing a replica of one of his shirts.
  
  
  
• There's nothing Helen Wagner can do to make a soap fan buy an six-dollar hot dog.
  
  
  
• Eight soap fans won't go to a taping of their favorite show with the word "PASSIONS" painted across their bare chests.
  
  
  
• Not one of Eric Braeden's fans knows how many errors he made in 1962.
  
  
  
• "General Hospital" watchers don't need a guy running around dressed as a chicken to hold their interest during the slow parts.
  
  
  
• Soap fans won't pay $1200 for tickets to a taping of "All My Children," then call radio programs complaining that Susan Lucci is overpaid.
  
  
  
• "One Life to Live" fans don't scream at their TVs, thinking it'll affect the outcome of the show.
  
  
  
• Soap fans aren't going to pay two hundred bucks for a pair of Air Alfonsos.
  
  
  
• Even the dumbest soap opera lover wouldn't go to a movie where Mark Consuelos helps the Looney Toons fight a group of marauding aliens.
  
  
  
• "Days of Our Lives" fans don't put on their "lucky underwear" thinking it'll magically transform Deirdre Hall into a competent actress.
  
  
  
• If Soap Opera Illustrated sent out an issue containing nothing but pictures of nearly-naked women, their readers would think something was wrong.
  
  
  
• At a soap convention, you won't see a fan with "ATWT" shaved into the hair on their back.