Again in 2004, a workforce of MTV producers turned up at a Southern California highschool on the hunt for the fitting group of charismatic teenagers to entrance their newest brainchild: a real-life, docu-soap model of Fox’s runaway-hit drama The O.C.

“We’re sitting there at school, and over the day by day bulletins they announce, ‘Okay everybody, MTV’s right here. They’ll forged a actuality present on Laguna Seaside. For those who’re , join within the quad at break,'” Christina Sinclair (née Schuller) recalled to Time in 2014. “And I believe for any 18 12 months previous, that is a dream come true. It is like Grease—after they say they are going to movie their promenade and it will be on nationwide tv. Oh my gosh, I’ve to do it!”

In a pre-Kardashians, pre-Actual Housewives world, what the community was after was pretty groundbreaking—a glossy-looking, new type of actuality TV that merely adopted a gaggle of intriguing topics round ready for them to make good tv.