ABC General Hospital Message Boards
From LoveToKnow Soap-Operas
ABC General Hospital message boards allow fans to communicate with each other in a variety of ways. The soap opera General Hospital (most often referred to as GH) debuted on ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) in 1963. The soap celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2003. The show expanded to a full hour in 1978. GH has the distinction of being the longest running serial on ABC and the longest running serial filmed in Hollywood.
Explore ABC General Hospital Message Boards
General Hospital message boards are comprised of online fan communities. Soap operas follow the lives of characters in their fictitious communities. In the case of GH, the town of Port Charles, New York is the focus. The show’s roots focused primarily on the doctors, nurses and their loved ones in and outside of the hospital.
The advent of online message boards in the 1980s allowed fans to communicate in an expedient fashion. Message boards allow fans from all over the country to login and discuss daily episodes, upcoming spoilers, favorite characters, favorite couples and much, much more. Each set of message boards comes with an exclusive community feel. ABC General Hospital Message Boards are available to ABC’s primary website, and fans can use them to compliment, complain and interact with each other.
Etiquette
Etiquette on GH message boards is important. GH fans can be very passionae in their likes and dislikes, it is important to recognize that characters are either loved or hated and that feelings about a character should not be transferred to the poster. A variety of abbreviations may be used to describe different emotional reactions, fan pairings and popular soap opera magazines or references. Understanding the abbreviations can assist new message board users in communicating with other fans.
Abbreviations
- FWIW for what it's worth
- GMTA great minds think alike
- ICAM I couldn't agree more
- IIRC if I recall correctly
- IMHO in my humble opinion (also IMNSHO in my not so humble opinion; IMO in my opinion)
- IRL in real life
- ITA I totally agree
- J/K just kidding
- JMHO just my humble opinion (also JMO just my opinion)
- LMAO laughing my ass off (also LOL laughing out loud)
- OTOH on the other hand
- POV point of view
- ROTFL (or ROFL) rolling on the floor laughing
- SID Soaps in Depth
- SO significant other
- SOD Soap Opera Digest or soap opera disease
- SOM Soap Opera Magazine
- SON Soap Opera News or Soap Opera Now
- SORAS soap opera rapid aging syndrome
- SOU Soap Opera Update
- SOW or SPW Soap Opera Weekly
- TIIC the idiots in charge
- TPTB the powers that be
Fan Groups
Fan groups consist of three specific types in the message board communities: character fans, pairing fans, pairing haters. Character fans of GH may be Sonny lovers (fans of Sonny Corinthos and/or actor Maurice Bernard), Elizabeth fans (fans of Elizabeth Webber and/or actress Rebecca Herbst) etc. The second type of fan is the pairing fan or fan of a specific couple. For GH, couple fans may include Luke and Laura (Spencer), Liason (Jason Morgan and Elizabeth Webber), Jarly (Jason Morgan and Carly Corinthos), J&B (Jasper Jax and Brenda Barrett) etc. There are also pairing haters. The pairing haters are distinctive in their dislike for a certain pairing by renaming it. For example, the pairing of Elizabeth Webber and Jason Morgan is called Liason by fans that love it and Jiz by fans that don’t.
Controversy
Controversy often erupts on the GH boards during major cast changes, storyline shifts or when one pairing is ended in favor of another. GH fans are passionate about the characters they love and hate. Since 1996, General Hospital has shifted the focus of the story from the hospital to the mob. While GH pioneered the action adventure storyline (Ice Princess, Luke and Laura) in the late 1970s, the advent of HBO’s Sopranos heavily influenced the daytime drama. There are fans that love this and fans who hate this.
‘Flame’ wars erupting on boards are typical of factions who feel strongly in either direction. While each message board has its own rules about behavior, courtesy and respect; these rules may be overlooked by ardent fans defending or attacking something they love or hate. It is not atypical to see ‘conversation posts’ that appeal directly to one faction in order to facilitate like minds communicating.
Spoilers
‘Spoilers’ are popular on message boards. Inside sources are often quoted (sometimes erroneously or fictitiously) in order to fan the flames about what is coming up next on GH. Message board etiquette requires that posters label their post as a ‘spoiler’ if it discusses upcoming events on GH if the events have not already unfolded across the country. (GH airs at different times, with viewers in the Eastern and Central time zones seeing each day's episode a few hours ahead of Mountain and Pacific time zones.)
A post labeled ‘spoiler’ should always be taken with a grain of salt as storylines may change at the last minute. Some fans like to ‘stir the pot’ and will post false spoilers in an attempt to do so. It is also not unusual for an ‘inside source’ to ‘plant’ a spoiler in order to deliberately mislead the online contingent about a storyline destination in order to engage viewers.
GH Message Boards
GH message boards are typically run by fans for fans. The ABC message board is the official board run by the ABC website. Moderators are available on all of the following message boards, although they tend to act more like crossing guards than police officers.
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Comments
Rhondam504, thanks for visiting LoveToKnow Soap Operas. We love to write about the soaps, but we don't know what will happen with Michael or Sonny and the rest. But GH is a soap and anything can happen!
-- Contributed by: HVLongplease don't kill off sonny, and jason, carly and sam they make the general hospital. when are you going to bring back brenda for sonny and whats up with sonny son is he going to be his father right hand. michael is he comming back as adult from his coma? being watchn general hospital since 1980.
-- Contributed by: Enter your name hereThis page has been accessed 1,524 times. This page was last modified 02:22, 21 September 2008.
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