By a guy who hasn't watched a full episode since 2004 but has opinions anyway So apparently *General Hospital* just celebrated another anniversary, which means that show has now outlived roughly four empires, two housing bubbles, and every single phone I have ever owned.
The thing premiered in 1963, back when "going to the hospital" was a plot device and not a personal financial strategy.
Sixty-plus years of Port Charles drama and somehow nobody in that town has ever just moved away and gotten a normal job.
Let me be clear: I do not watch this show.
But every few years the internet reminds me it exists, usually because someone got frozen in a cryogenic chamber or turned out to be a secret twin, and I feel a deep, unearned sense of loyalty.
We just forget they're on and then act shocked when they're still going.
The business model here is genuinely fascinating. *General Hospital* has survived the death of daytime TV, the rise of streaming, and the fact that approximately nine people still know what channel ABC is.
Meanwhile, I've had three different jobs and a phone number I can't remember.
That show is out here doing what the rest of us can't: showing up every weekday for six decades and refusing to explain itself.
From what I can gather via cultural osmosis, Port Charles is essentially a small town where the local hospital doubles as a crime scene, a wedding venue, and a place where people have amnesia roughly as often as I have Chipotle.
If you get admitted there for a routine procedure, there's a non-zero chance you'll wake up married to your own cousin.
That's not healthcare, that's a subscription service.
Here's the part that gets me, though: the fans are *loyal*.
Ride-or-die, set-the-DVR, know-every-murder-since-1987 loyal.
In a world where we can't commit to a two-season Netflix show without getting it canceled, these people have stuck with the same fictional town since the Kennedy administration.
Look, I'm not going to pretend I understand it.
I don't understand why anyone watches golf either, but here we are, a country that contains multitudes.
The point is that *General Hospital* keeps chugging along like a Nokia phone in a world of cracked iPhones, and there's something weirdly comforting about that.
Port Charles just adds another secret sibling.
So here's my closing thought: I will absolutely never watch this show on purpose, but I will also be genuinely sad the day it goes off the air, and I think that's the most American relationship any of us can have with anything.
Final Thoughts
May your coma patients stay conveniently unconscious until sweeps week.