''Gossip Girl'': Psst...Did You Hear?

Image credit: PHOTOGRAPH BY GUY AROCH

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The Upper East Side of Gossip Girl could out-scandal Beverly Hills, 90210, Dawson's Creek, and Laguna Beach combined. Blair is a virginity-obsessed diva; Serena (Blake Lively) is a reformed bad girl who slept with her best friend's boyfriend; Nate (Chace Crawford) turned in his coke-snorting dad; and Chuck (Ed Westwick) regularly sleeps with leggy ladies in the five-star Palace Hotel — which his family, naturally, owns. Only Dan (Penn Badgley), the requisite tortured poet, and his kid sister, Jenny (Taylor Momsen), aren't loaded; they live in the purgatory known as Brooklyn.

Or, as one of Gossip Girl's young fans summarizes, ''It's like, 'Oh, my God. My life sucks. I'm rich.''' That's a 15-year-old student at Nightingale-Bamford (the Upper East Side girls' school on which the Gossip books are loosely based) describing the show that half her class loves, half hates, and everyone follows. She's got a detailed knowledge of each character and story line — but that doesn't mean she identifies with them. ''People are like, 'Oh, my God, do you, like, drink on Thursday nights in hotels?''' she says. ''I'm always like, 'No.''' Of course, that lack of realism is one of the show's prime selling points. ''It's so ludicrous, I couldn't turn away, so I keep watching,'' says New York City public school sophomore Ava Ulmer, 15. ''Now I can't get enough.''

Being obsessed with a teen show — from 90210 to The O.C. — has long involved reveling in the problems of beautiful people from snazzy zip codes. But Gossip Girl is especially racy, full of casual sex and unapologetic pot smoking. Perhaps that's why some Manhattan kids say that their schools have discouraged them from watching the show or even talking to the media about it. (Multiple schools did not return calls to EW.) ''We're not trying to make a documentary about the life and times of the Upper East Side,'' says the 22-year-old Crawford. ''People should know the show has been embellished.''

In Los Angeles, some students — apparently inspired by Gossip Girl — created an anonymous, trash-talking blog about the goings-on at several tony schools. ''They supposedly have, like, polls on who's hotter and whatever,'' says London Venturelli, 17, a high school senior. (The blog has since shut down.) And students at one L.A. private school have found themselves part of an informal focus group, thanks to an extremely well-connected student: Justin Ostroff. ''The person who runs [The CW] was asking us how we liked it,'' says one girl, talking from the backseat of a Lexus. ''Her son goes here. She's Justin's mom.''

''Justin's mom'' is better known as Dawn Ostroff, the entertainment president of The CW, and she couldn't be more thrilled about how her son's classmates are gossiping about Girl. ''A show like this is our crown jewel,'' she says. ''We will nurture and push and push for this show because it's perfect for our audience.'' Ostroff was so confident about Gossip Girl's prospects that she gave the series a full-season pickup after only three episodes had aired — a remarkable show of support. No one was more surprised than the creators, Schwartz and fellow O.C. alum Stephanie Savage. ''We both got called to the phone together,'' laughs Savage, ''which we assumed meant we were in trouble.''

NEXT PAGE: ''You can't wake up in the morning and look at the ratings and know the whole story.... A lot of the rules are out the window.''