[pretoriusB]

Your analogy breaks in that we hate the "soap opera" look EVEN in soap operas and even if we happen to like soap operas (which I occasionally do).

It's not that we associate the HFR look with a bad thing and thus we think it's bad "by association".

It's that we think the HFR look is bad in itself.

[baddox]

I don't universally hate soap operas or the soap opera look, and I do think the association made by most people is simply that soap operas tend to be low budget while also being shown at 60 Hz. I believe the fundamental reason for bad-looking soap operas is the low budgets. They are 60 Hz because that's just how television has worked for a very long time.