If you're an under 35 year old British human being then, chances are you used to binge-watch Hollyoaks. Well, guess what - this week, the soap turns 20 years old.
A very reliable young person who still watches the show assures me that, even though I haven't watched Hollyoaks in about ten years, it's still been churning out excellently bonkers storylines. One particular favourite she tells me, was when, 'Steph died in a fire (she also had cervical cancer). Then one episode Doug (Ste’s long term boyfriend) was depressed, threw himself off a bridge, angel Steph appeared before him and it was basically a Christmas Carol and he chose life. It was actually quite emotional, I remember crying.'
So there you go.
But how has spending hours and hours watching Hollyoaks impacted our lives? I for one, picked up some very valuable life lessons....
Sleeping with your sister isn't massively OK
Remember fit Rhys? Rhys Ashworth? He was Emma Rigby's brother and best mates with Gilly. He also went out with Sarah Barnes. And shagged her mum. But the worst part was when he started seeing a girl called Beth. Except she went all cold on him. Turned out her dad had died and, when Rhys went to his dad's funeral, it turned out that him and Beth HAD THE SAME DAD. The two tried to avoid each other for a while, disgusted that they'd had sex with each other but, in the end, they gave in a started bonking again. Eventually, Beth buggered off to Thailand with Gilly and Rhys started seeing Mercedes McQueen. When Beth returned, her and Rhys started right back up again. Until Rhys drove into a lorry and Beth died.
You can kill people with crushed glass
Remember Laura? She lived with Mandy. The trouble was, she went all Single White Female on Mandy's arse by crushing up little bits of glass and putting them in Mandy's drink. Luckily Max and Becca arrived and stopped Mandy from actually dying. It then turned out that Laura wasn't called Laura at all. She was called Kerry. Laura was the name of her best friend who had died when she was 11. Spooky.
Keeping your mum's dead body upstairs is a terrible idea
Lovely Bombhead. Such a simple character, such a big heart, such a massive maniac who was keeping his mother's dead body in a bed upstairs and continuing to cook and clean for her as if she was alive. Bombhead then started having hallucinations of the also-dead Mr. Cunningham telling him he needed help (no shit), although it wasn't until someone sat on the dead Mrs. Bombhead that things finally came to a head.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it
As demonstrated by Nick Pickard, also known as Tony Hutchinson, the only surviving member of the original cast from 1995. Over the past 20 years, Tony has had relationships with many, *many *of the female Hollyoakers (four of them McQueens and one of them underage), survived cancer, lost a baby to SIDS, survived a house fire and kept Il Gnosh going for longer than it ever deserved to be around for. FYI, Tony is now so old he has a grown up son in the show who is going out with Ste. Here's to 20 more years Tony.
Find yourself a friend like O.B.
Perhaps the most beautiful friendship of modern times. No-one believed O.B. when he said that Max's girlfriend Clare was a wrong'un. The crafty lady cheated on Max with Warren and even framed O.B. for drug possession on her wedding day. When Max was laid up after surviving the great Dog In The Pond pub explosion, Clare tried to kill him by tampering with his medication. She then told him that his little brother Tom had fallen in an icy lake so he would dive into save him. Luckily O.B. arrives in the nick of time, punches Clare in the face and saves his friend. Later he tries to kill Clare in hospital. What a guy.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.