I think what we see on TV doesn't represent the typical Californian (granted, this is coming from a North-Easter, Connecticut to be exact).When I think of California, I think of waitresses and waiters who are wanna be actors. I think of celebritie(or wanna be's) and their Scientology or Cabbalah, hot stone therapy and face creams that are made of the forskin of babies at a few $1000. bucks a bottle. They probably can't afford it but do it anyway to keep up with the "neighbors"
I know there are ritch people aside from celebrities but I wonder how many of the non-celebrity ritch people are quite this shallow.
Then there's the people who aren't celebrities and are not ritch.
I think (and hope) this is a false representation of the typical Californian and this is just what we see about celebrities and the show "The OC".
And as others have mentioned, most of the house guests are not from Cali, my guess is that they're already like that or as the saying goes, "When in Rome...Do as the Roman's do".