Here's an article that discusses DS while talking about the soap genre:
Daytime soaps are losing their luster. Though I think the author has a few oddly skewed if not outright condescending opinions about soaps - now as well as then, And chief among them so far as we're concerned is the notion that DS simply targeted/appealed to teenage girls and "not elementary school-age boys." I'm afraid I have to completely disagree because in my elementary school the boys were just as much into DS as the girls. And I know I'm not alone in that experience because I've talked with many fans through the years whose elementary school experience was the same. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the author's inability to get into DS and other soaps has a lot more to do with and says a lot more about him than it does the soap genre or DS itself.