The year was 2000. It was a different world. No smartphones, no social media, and honestly, nobody really knew what "reality TV" was supposed to be yet. When the big brother cast season 1 walked into that house in Studio City, California, they weren't looking for Instagram followers or a career in influencer marketing. They were lab rats in a massive, high-stakes psychological experiment that changed television forever.
It’s hard to explain now how weird it felt back then.
CBS took ten strangers, locked them in a house with no outside contact, and broadcast their every move 24/7 on the internet. It was primitive. The cameras were grainy. The "house" looked more like a modular office building than the luxury mansions we see in modern seasons. But the raw human interaction? That was real. There were no "scripts" or "producer-driven plotlines" like we see today. It was just ten people slowly losing their minds from boredom and isolation.
Who Were These People Anyway?
The big brother cast season 1 was a eclectic mix of turn-of-the-millennium archetypes. You had Eddie McGee, the outspoken amputee from Long Island who eventually took home the $500,000 prize. There was Josh Souza, the "pretty boy" who ended up in second place. Jamie Kern was the pageant queen who, fun fact, ended up becoming a massive billionaire later in life after founding IT Cosmetics.
Then you had the more "colorful" characters like Chicken George (George Boswell). George was a middle-aged guy from Rockford, Illinois, who became the heart of the show. He literally brought chickens into the backyard. It was a simpler time. Brittany Petros was the edgy girl with the colored hair, and Cassandra Waldon was the dignified professional who provided the house with its only sense of maturity. The rest of the crew—Karen Fowler, Jean-Jordan, Curtis Kin, and Will Pyatt—all filled roles that felt like real people you'd meet at a grocery store, not aspiring actors.
The Rules That Nobody Liked
One of the biggest misconceptions about the first season is that it worked like the current game. It didn't. In the modern era, the houseguests vote each other out. It's cutthroat. It's about alliances and "backstabbing." In season 1, the houseguests would "nominate" two people, but the American public voted on who stayed.
It was a popularity contest.
✨ Don't miss: Who was the voice of Yoda? The real story behind the Jedi Master
This made for a very boring game. If you were "mean" or "strategic," the public hated you and voted you out immediately. This led to a house full of people trying desperately to be nice to each other. They spent hours just sitting around a table talking about nothing. Literally nothing. They'd talk about how to cook oatmeal for forty minutes.
Why the Big Brother Cast Season 1 Almost Quit
There was a moment—a very real, very tense moment—where the entire experiment almost collapsed. It's often referred to as the "mutiny."
The houseguests were bored. They were frustrated with the production's interference. They felt like they were being manipulated for ratings. Led largely by George and Jamie, the cast actually discussed walking out of the house as a group. They huddled together in the backyard, away from the microphones (or so they thought), and plotted to leave.
It was the first time "Big Brother"—the voice of the producers—had to really step in and negotiate. They eventually convinced them to stay, but it pulled back the curtain. It showed that these weren't just characters; they were human beings reaching a breaking point.
The Eddie McGee Dominance
Eddie was the breakout star. He was blunt. He didn't take any crap. While others were trying to be "TV friendly," Eddie was just Eddie. He had lost his leg to cancer years prior, and his physical capability in the house challenges—which were much more "low-budget" back then—was impressive.
But it wasn't his physicality that won him the game. It was his authenticity. In a house where everyone was trying to be "the nice guy," Eddie's willingness to be grumpy or loud felt refreshing to the viewers at home. He won with 59% of the public vote.
🔗 Read more: Not the Nine O'Clock News: Why the Satirical Giant Still Matters
The Cultural Legacy of the First Ten
If you look at the big brother cast season 1 now, it’s a time capsule of Y2K fashion and pre-9/11 optimism.
- Jamie Kern Lima: She's the most successful person to ever come out of the franchise. Period. She sold her company to L'Oréal for $1.2 billion.
- Chicken George: He actually came back for Big Brother: All-Stars (Season 7) and proved he was still just as quirky and lovable, even when the game had evolved into a shark tank.
- Eddie McGee: He moved into acting and has appeared in several films and TV shows, including The Walking Dead.
The show was hosted by Julie Chen Moonves, who was then a news anchor. Critics hated it. They called it "voyeurism" and "the end of civilization." The New York Times was particularly brutal. Yet, millions of people tuned in to watch Cassandra talk about her life or to see if Brittany and Josh would finally hook up (they didn't, really).
How the Game Evolved (or Devolved)
Because Season 1 was so "slow," the producers realized they had to change the format. For Season 2, they introduced the "Head of Household" and let the players vote each other out. That changed everything. It turned Big Brother from a social study into a game of strategy.
But there's something lost in that transition. In Season 1, you saw the psychological toll of isolation. You saw what happens to the human brain when it's deprived of new information. They were obsessed with a single bird flying over the yard. They treated a delivery of groceries like it was Christmas morning.
Technical Mishaps and 24/7 Internet Feeds
We have to talk about the tech. In 2000, the "live feeds" were a revolutionary concept. You had to have a RealPlayer plugin on your desktop computer. The video was about the size of a postage stamp. It buffered constantly.
Despite the technical hurdles, thousands of people spent their entire workdays watching these ten people eat, sleep, and breathe. It was the birth of the "superfan." This was the first time an audience could know more about what was happening than the people on the show. Fans would see a conversation in the kitchen and realize that a houseguest was lying before anyone else in the house knew.
💡 You might also like: New Movies in Theatre: What Most People Get Wrong About This Month's Picks
The Cast's Relationship with "Big Brother"
The "voice" of Big Brother in Season 1 was different too. It wasn't as much of a character. It was just a disembodied voice giving instructions. The cast would often talk back to the cameras, addressing the producers directly. They'd ask for cigarettes, better food, or just more stuff to do.
The production was learning on the fly. They didn't have a "standard operating procedure" for what to do if a houseguest became depressed or if the group decided to go on a hunger strike. It was raw. It was messy. It was, quite literally, the "Wild West" of television.
What We Can Learn from the First Season
Looking back at the big brother cast season 1, you realize how much the "fame" aspect has ruined modern reality TV. Today, people go on these shows with a brand strategy. They have a pre-planned "arc."
In 2000, these ten people were just there for the experience (and the money, obviously). They didn't know they were starting a multi-decade phenomenon. They didn't know their names would be trivia answers twenty-six years later.
If you want to understand the history of the show, you have to look at the basics:
- Isolation is a weapon: Even without a complex game, the lack of outside contact forced people to form intense, sometimes irrational bonds.
- The Public is Fickle: The way the audience turned on "villains" in Season 1 set the stage for how future players would try to "edit" themselves.
- Authenticity Wins: Eddie McGee proved that being "real" is more valuable to an audience than being "perfect."
Actionable Steps for Superfans
If you are a fan of the show today but have never seen the first season, you're missing the foundation. It's a slow burn, but it's worth it for the history.
- Watch the Highlights: Don't try to binge all 70+ episodes. Most of them are very slow. Find the "Mutiny" episode and the finale to see the stark contrast in how the game used to be played.
- Follow the Alumni: Check out Jamie Kern Lima's books on entrepreneurship. It’s fascinating to see how the "pageant girl" from a 2000 reality show became a titan of industry.
- Compare the Mechanics: Watch a Season 1 nomination ceremony and then watch a modern one. Notice how the language has changed from "social responsibility" to "gameplay strategy."
The big brother cast season 1 wasn't just a group of houseguests. They were the pioneers who walked so that people like Dan Gheesling and Dr. Will Kirby could run. They endured the boredom and the weirdness so that Big Brother could become the juggernaut it is today.
Next time you see a houseguest crying over a "backdoor" move, remember the OGs who cried because they didn't have any more flour to make bread. That was the real Big Brother.