Facebook status updates like soap opera gold

"All My Children" has been off the air a month now. For those of you still mourning the loss of your friends in Pine Valley, and bemoaning the doom of soaps in general, allow me to make a suggestion. Hop on Facebook. You'll find all the melodrama Erica Kane and company brought you, only with characters you actually know.

According to statistics from Facebook, the average user has 130 friends. There's bound to be a villainous Todd Manning ("One Life to Live"), dramatic Brenda Barrett ("General Hospital") or possessed Dr. Marlena Evans ("Days of Our Lives") in the bunch.

The crazy breakups are my personal favorite. If you have a friend who has popped up in your news feed with that little heart icon next to his or her picture several times in recent memory, you can almost hear the piano keys of the "Young and the Restless" theme song every time it happens.

And, if it's a traffic-heavy weekday when the words "is now single" accompany that heart, you can basically think of it as the Friday afternoon cliffhanger for which soap operas are so notorious. Why? Because, it's about to go down.

Anyone making an announcement like that, at a time like that, wants as many people as possible to know the relationship is dunzo.

First, the condolences come in. "Oh, how sad." In case the words don't express the sentiment, an actual sad face is added to get the message through. :(

And then the friends who had to endure every last slap fight, fake pregnancy, scandalous affair, and mascara-dripping sobfest start to chime in. Some keep it subtle, simply giving the news a "like." Others can't contain it: "Awesome, when do we celebrate?"

Cue the dramatic music.

It's only a matter of time before the ex will make his or her thunder-crashing entrance in the comments field. Or, it could be the ex's friends. Or both. Regardless, a good old-fashioned "How dare you?!" will be in there somewhere. It's social media's way of letting you know you don't need no stinkin' soap operas.

There's a reason the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers revealed in a 2010 survey that 81 percent of the nation's top divorce attorneys cited an increase in social networking evidence used in divorce cases. Facebook is drama. And, drama is (sometimes) divorce. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg.

At least now we don't need to wonder who those soap stars are talking to when they're all alone, with a glass of scotch, and declare aloud their vengeance -- or undying love -- for the character who just stormed out of the room. We have Facebook to keep us wondering about equally pressing things, such as who on earth the angry chick is talking to when she updates her status with "You messed with the wrong girl this time, buddy!"

Sometimes you can see a story line developing before the characters even can. When a parent of three strictly posts photos and updates of one child, holding it up like Simba on the mountaintop, you can easily foretell the future.

One day the "other" kids will start a Facebook account and discover they've been cyber-disowned. That's how evil daughters, like Erika Kane's when Buffy the Vampire Slayer played her, are made. Parents like this shouldn't be surprised if their lesser-than kids lock a younger sibling in a crypt one day like she did.

Or, the neglect could simply manifest in the form of attention-starved Facebook behavior. Lots of self-taken photos with sexy facial expressions and cryptic daily updates such as "Sometimes you can only take so much."

You know the type. Unless you want a child of yours to turn into the Internet version of daytime's biggest diva, give all of them the Simba treatment.

Just like soaps, not all the drama is tragic. You've got the lovey-dovey Hopes and Bos who "honey" and "bunny" each other relentlessly. You've got the video upload from the Luke and Laura wedding you weren't invited to and the photos of the newborn that wasn't switched at birth.

Oh, you also have the Lucky Spencers who turn out not to be dead after all. In social media, that's the guy who swore off Facebook, only to return to the madness one week later.

So long as you're not playing a lead, or even a supporting role, watching a Facebook soap opera play out is just as harmless as watching those "sands through the hourglass." Except, there are no rude commercial breaks, no weird "the role of such and such will now be played by so and so" messages on friends' profiles and a drop in your ratings, aka your number of friends, won't threaten to take you offline for good.

Contact columnist Xazmin Garza at xgarza@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0477.
Follow her on Twitter at @startswithanx.