How Daytime Serials Came to Be Known as Soap Operas

Patrick Foote of Name Explain looked at the history and etymology of the seemingly nonsensical term “soap opera”. He notes that these serial programs started out as radio programs that were primarily sponsored and then made by home goods companies.

They were initially created for one group of people women specifically stay-at-home housewives of the early 20th century who would spend their days cooking and cleaning … Someone somewhere realized that these women, with their radios blaring away as they cleaned, were a huge potential market and wanted to craft a show that they would love which could feature adverts with something they would definitely buy. 

Foote further explains that as these programs moved to television, they became known as soap operas. While the first part of the name was explained, the second part is a bit of a stretch but it works.

Traditional operas are incredibly dramatic affairs. they often involve groups of people arguing over wild events around them ,be it on a stage as opposed to an opera, but it’s because of this similarity that the wider term of opera got applied to soap operas. Opera has kind of become a synonym for melodrama.