Penn Badgley (the good boy), Chace Crawford (the cougar bait), and Ed Westwick (the arrogant rake) are ubiquitous on the Web and in the tabloids, and every hot young woman in America wants a piece of them. Maybe their preppy soap opera, Gossip Girl, will propel one or all of them to superstardom. Or maybe not.

-By Mark Harris
-Cover photo by Steven Klein

You are on the streets of Manhattan, shooting on location. A dozen paparazzi and a dozen teenage girls come at you, screaming. The paps give you a little room. The girls give you none. They text and Twitter and suddenly there are many more of them. They would surround you, topple you, if it weren't for security. They just want to touch you. Just for a second. Surely this must be what being famous feels like: being in your early twenties and good-looking, making money, and starring in the kind of TV show that makes fans want to consume you. People keep telling you something big is happening. The phrase window of opportunity is in the air. You could be the next George Clooney, joking with wry self-deprecation 20 years from now about your humble beginnings on a teen soap. Until you Google yourself one night and discover that someone has called you the new Spencer Pratt.