What does SORAS mean in Soap Opera? Explained in depth

SORAS, otherwise known as Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome, is a prevalent trope often found across daytime television shows. The very phrase "Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome" was first coined by Soap Opera Weekly founder and editor Mimi Torchin in the 1990s. What Torchin essentially did was put a name to an already existing phenomenon as by the time the phrase came to be in use, the practise of aging characters was already prevalent in daytime soap operas.

SORAS typically involves the rapid aging of a particular character for narrative and storyline purposes. Whenever a character gets SORASed, so to speak, they will be absent from the show's main storyline for a while before they return well-advanced in age. For instance, if a newborn baby is part of an ongoing storyline, the show might choose to omit the toddler's life and rapidly age the character to their pre-teen or adolescent years in contrast to real-time aging.

Most of the prominent examples of soap operas in the country, such as The Young and The Restless, As The World Turns, and All My Children have featured instances of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.

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Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Rapid Aging in soaps is an integral part of their storylines

As mentioned earlier, producers of American daytime soap operas frequently take recourse to SORAS in a bid to elevate their narratives. As can be guessed, soap operas often involve such narrative tropes as unwanted pregnancies or switched-at-birth storylines. There is often an abundance of newborn baby characters who would otherwise not be that entertaining on their own.

Another reason behind the limited appeal of newborns and toddlers in terms of character development is the fact that they can scarcely deliver their lines or digest stage directions without throwing a fit. On the other hand, child labour laws have become more stringent over the years, and as a result, child artists and their involvement are quite closely monitored by both public and private agencies. From a show producer's perspective, it's better to have a pre-teen or an adolescent character than a toddler, as the former can be expected to remember their lines better.

When it comes to adolescent characters, the show's writers can easily develop narratives and storylines revolving around their love life, which in turn calls for entertaining television. Without SORAS, most daytime soap operas would find themselves in a quandary when it comes to advancing their narratives.

The character of Tom Hughes from As The World Turns is a particularly relevant example. The show in question was broadcast in the late 1960s and initially presented Tom Hughes as a pre-teen character. Almost instantly, he was rapidly aged on the show, and his next appearance was as an adult who was being deployed in the army in Vietnam.

This wide margin of rapid aging was a common practice until producers began targeting the youth and adolescents to bring their number to swell the ranks of the audience. Following this, rapid aging was brought down to a margin of five to six years

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Other instances of SORAS

Fans of The Young and The Restless will remember the character of Billy Abbott, who was initially born on the show in 1993. However, in a remarkable instance of SORAS, he was quickly aged to be sixteen years old by the year 1999. Billy Abbott went from being two years younger than his niece, Colleen Carlton, to being four years older than her.

Similarly, the character of Nicholas Newman was born on the show in 1988. He was then sent off to a Swiss boarding school, from which he returned in 1994 as an already grown man in his early twenties. Kendall Hart from All My Children is another example of a daytime soap character who was rapidly aged on popular demand.

Apart from daytime soaps, rapid aging is also prevalent in other genres such as science fiction and sitcoms. Whereas rapid aging is by now an established practice in America, other television industries in the United Kingdom and Australia are still catching up to it.