"Real World Austin" has attracted fans and enemies, Web site chatters and Sixth Street stalkers.

The show also has spawned a rumor mill that won't stop churning. Cast sightings, especially when filming first began in late January, have been heralded, discounted and, yes, roundly ridiculed. A confirmed sighting, but without formal introduction, was March 11, when cast members attended the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards.

The semistealth MTV production will flee Austin in early May, with the 16th edition of "Real World" scheduled to debut in June (new episodes air Tuesday nights). The young cast members might not have made a ripple in the majority of Austinites' lives, but they've made a big impression on night-owl hipsters, Drag dwellers and others.

A hotbed for gossip and actual info is realworldaustin.com, which gets 60,000 to 80,000 page views per day — more than 120,000 per day when the site launched Dec. 24, the day MTV announced it was coming to Austin. About 500 people are registered.

"Now that they've been filming a while, the chaos has calmed down," says the site's creator and "Real World" fan Mark Shields, a 35-year-old Web consultant from Houston.

Shields is out of the MTV target age demographic, but he describes himself as "single and looking," which most "Real World" fans are, so that puts him squarely back in the regular audience. He was working in Philadelphia, a block away from the cast's house, when the show started filming its 15th season there.

"People in Austin are different," Shields says. "The Philadelphia crowd was 30-ish. People in Austin are younger and more technically savvy."

A couple of "Real" fans

Lucy Wu Cohen, whose realworldaustin.com moniker is lucyjade, has nearly 90 entries and dozens of photos posted — not the fuzzy cell phone stuff, but actual photography. She's become an unofficial "Real World" paparazzo.

A recent University of Texas grad who works for a computer software company and recently got married, Cohen says she doesn't search for the cast all the time. She mostly goes out on weekends and has only seen cast members twice, both times on Sixth Street. She talked to one of the guys, whose name we're not supposed to reveal, at Spill Bar.

"He's a big flirt, but he seems pretty nice, sort of like a frat boy," Cohen says. "They always cast people with the same personalities. He's like Landon from Philadelphia."

A fan since the New Orleans show in 2000, Cohen likes "Real World" for the same reason most people like reality TV.

"They kind of embarrass themselves, you know?" she says. "Normal kids wouldn't be this dramatic. These kids want to be famous, so they act for the camera. They argue a lot more and make out more when the cameras are on."

The Web chatters are a tight group, bonded by searching and sightings. Cohen met Santiago Aleman (velvetsaje on realworldaustin.com) at a Feb. 25 "Real World/"Road Rules" party at Element nightclub. He is almost as frequent a visitor to the Web site as she is.

"Any time I'm downtown, after a night going out with my friends, I look for the cast," says Aleman, 22, an outgoing customer service representative who also works nights for the Internal Revenue Service. "We pass by the house, just in case, but I haven't actually had a chance to meet any of them, which is funny since I know so much about them."

A fan since "Real World" debuted in 1992, Aleman has one burning desire.

"As cheesy as this sounds, I plan to be on a reality show some day," he says. "Maybe it will be the 'Real World,' maybe not. I honestly don't want the minifame that comes with it. I want the experience — and the chance to someday go down in history without creating some grand invention."

Naughty or nice?

That depends on the time of day... and whether we're talking about the cast or Austin's onlookers.

There have been stories of people staking out the "Real World" house (which, by the way, has a huge neon sign on top of it) and yelling nasty things at the cast.

Austin isn't the only place where this has happened, but we should be embarrassed. People who perhaps have had too many late-night beverages have yelled "Go home!" at cast members. Some scream that they hate the show — and other things that cannot be repeated in a family newspaper.

There has been Internet chatter about fights in bars, with regulars miffed that out-of-towners take up valuable space with their cameras and lights. And some Austin patrons don't like MTV folks asking them to sign waivers that could make them look like fools when the show airs.

Online testimonials are about evenly divided in their assessment of the cast. They're jerks, loud-mouthed drunks who never explore Austin beyond the bars on Sixth Street. They're full of themselves and never talk to anyone except each other. Or they're cool kids who have become victims of MTV's secrecy and the "Real World" bubble. They're sweet and sexy, full of personality.

"In our place, they've been behaving," says Mike Yassine, manager of the Treasure Island Pirate Bar. "When they come in, they have people following them around. Everybody buys them drinks. I've never seen them buy their own drinks."

Stephen Kelley, manager of Spill Bar, refused to sign the waiver, but that didn't stop the cast from coming in just about every night for a while. He says the cast members draw a crowd but don't mingle outside their own group. When they leave, he says, a lot of patrons go with them.

Other regular watering holes for the "Real Worlders" are the Dizzy Rooster, the Aquarium, the Chugging Monkey and the Drink.

House, house, where's the house?

Well, of course, we know where it is, but publicists for "Real World" have threatened us with death if we reveal the actual address in the newspaper.

It's downtown. That's all we'll say in print.

The show has a habit of leaking misinformation to throw off the press and fans during filming. There are rumors that the three-guy, four-gal cast we think we know (including their names) could be decoys.

Among the early house rumors were: Fifth Street Lofts, a historic house on Baylor Street, the penthouse suite of a downtown hotel, an estate on Lake Austin and a luxury dwelling near Zilker Park.

"There are certain secrets they like to keep, because that's what makes you want to watch the show week after week," says realworldaustin.com creator Mark Shields. "They use a little subterfuge."

Other-than-Sixth-Street sightings

They hang out on the Drag near the University of Texas, where they have been prepping for their "job." More about that later.

Occasional lunch spots have included Chipotle Mexican Grill on Guadalupe Street and Hog Islands Deli at 16th and Lavaca streets.

"They come in small groups, two or three at a time, in the afternoon," says deli owner Carlo DiMarco. "It's been good for business, but they haven't attracted a lot of attention."

A frequent dining spot is P.F. Chang's China Bistro at Second and San Jacinto streets, where the cast is welcomed with open arms.

"We treat them like everybody else, and we've had very good experiences," says Glen Piner, the restaurant's operating partner.

"They wait — 45 minutes one Friday night — unless they have a reservation. We just try to get them a table that's a bit out of the way because they have the crew with them."

Piner says diners have not complained, and only the restaurant's staff has been asked to sign releases.

The cast has not been sighted at quintessential Austin destinations such as Barton Springs pool, Mount Bonnell or the Town Lake hike-and-bike trail. But that might not mean they haven't gone.

We do know they rented a video at Waterloo Video, although the manager didn't know what they had rented or whose name was used.

And some cast members work out almost daily at a downtown gym, which we won't name so that gawkers won't drive them away.

The not-so-secret "job"

Weekly sightings at UT's Department of Radio-Television-Film lend credence to the rumor that they are making a 15-minute documentary about a band at South by Southwest.

Their teacher/mentor, who declines to comment, is allegedly Emmy-winning filmmaker Paul Stekler ("George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire," "Last Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style").

What can seven novices learn in such a short time?

"How to hold the camera," says Karen Bernstein, producer of "Troop 1500" (Ellen Spiro is the director), a documentary that debuted at SXSW and was more than five years in the making.

"But maybe that's all you need to know for this unique kind of guerrilla filmmaking," she adds. "If you get a really talented person, it doesn't matter how much time they have."

Bernstein, who worked on "Eyes on the Prize II" when she interned at Boston's WGBH, concedes that the minidoc will not turn the cast into top-notch filmmakers.