Jon: Well, this is a show about h-words—oh, screw it, it's not worth trying to beat around this ridiculous bush. "I Just Want My Pants Back" is the show about hipsters, and its relative accuracy is impressive yet unnerving. Feeling the latter often makes it difficult to acknowledge the former, especially since it’s airing on the "Teen Mom" network and has one of the greatest lead-ins of all time, "Jersey Shore."

In "Pants," Jason (aka Jay) and Tina are hip young post-grads who smoke pot in bar bathrooms and talk about their sex droughts and screwy relationships in a post-Juno repartee that doesn’t seem too impossible, but maybe that’s cause you like to think you and your friends rap like that. But maybe you kinda do!

Exaggeration is always somewhat necessary in television, but what’s really neat about the first two episodes of "Pants" is that everything holding it together seems somewhat real and familiar. Premise: Jay gets laid and his titular pants stolen—and obviously finding said pants (and mystery thief, Jane) becomes a metaphor for discovering oneself. Jay’s best friend Tina wasn’t given a whole lot to do in the pilot except spit out some solid one-liners, but she showed signs of inner turmoil in episode two as she grappled with waiting for a post-fight text from her chocolatier/poet squeeze, Brett, as well as deflowering her 19-year-old intern. After the pilot I got the sense that Jay and Tina’s friendship would eventually morph into your typical will they/won’t they relationship, but I’m not so sure now—which is actually a very good thing, sitcom conventions be damned. And straight up, I like that "Pants" hits so close to home on a level that goes beyond pop references and good location scouting (not that that’s not important), and lands somewhere much more personal.

For those who haven't yet indulged: to the preview clip!

RJ: When we first heard of this show, I was afraid. With stuff like "2 Broke Girls" and "The New Girl" lightly depicting youthful, hip, Williamsburg-inspired culture, I became almost defensive and territorial when you told me about this “more accurate” portrayal of hipster life. Not to mention the casual Wavves namedrop (and the non-casual score collaboration), some nug huffing, and a so-bored, yet positive-minded protagonist whose current life’s a chore. Holding down a shitty job as an assistant to a strangely perverted and outrageously cruel casting director (played by the always stellar Chris Parnell), Jay reaches out to hilarious, wackadoo magazine publisher Lench (who’s latest project, All Naturals, focuses on environmental sustainability and hot chicks—“think models with 70’s-era bush in hemp bikinis teaching you how to compost”), because he’s thinking of getting into “music journalism.” I’ll admit I was hating myself for not being an investment banker when they dropped that on my dome, but I ended up finding all of it endearing. Sure, it’s hard to see my lifestyle and career choices caricatured onscreen. But if it didn’t feel real, would I feel this exposed?

Now, hipsters vs. suits is an eternal struggle on par with cats vs. dogs, the Empire vs. the Rebel Alliance, and Lana Del Rey vs. the word “authentic.” Standing in stark contrast to Jay and Tina, their friends Eric and Stacey aren’t quite typical suits (that title goes to the sexually repressed lawyers that Jay and Tina seduce at the All Naturals launch party), but their chosen path of grad/med school over Jay and Tina’s free wheeling lifestyle represent some sort of “safer” route and perhaps even a minor case of “selling out.” Eric and Stacey aren’t culturally clueless; I’m pretty sure Eric fits Urban Dictionary’s definition of “blipster” while Stacey’s the one who initially name-drops Wavves, wanting to momentarily reclaim her punk past by celebrating her birthday at a super secret show. Instead of keeping up with an “alternative” lifestyle into early adulthood (like Jay and Tina), Eric and Stacey have chosen a domestic path with more structure and security. Tina digs the couple as they make out over the crock pot Eric gifts to Stacey, but beyond her snark lies an unsettling contrast. While Jay and Tina can act like their life choices make them too cool for adulthood, they can’t deny Eric and Stacey’s genuine happiness and fulfilment as they struggle to find their own, professional and personal. I’ll take it one step further: as a 23-year-old freelance writer living in Williamsburg who took a year off from undergrad, ditched Politics for a fresh English degree and a maybe-career in music writing, seeing just how happy Eric and Stacey are makes me wonder about my path myself.

Jon: "Pants" never makes Eric and Stacey seem lame—I mean, they make couples Wii tennis, buying a mattress and quizzing each other with flash cards of diseases seem pretty dope. Sure, Jay and Tina take some jabs at them (“They’re hip, they’re new, they’re loud,” says Jay after Stacey expresses interest in the Wavves show), but neither lifestyle is really glorified. Jay comes across looking pretty awful when he forgets to pick up the Wavves tickets from the Craigslist dude cause he was finger-banging the freaky-deaky lawyer chick instead. With that in mind, what I find odd and almost off-putting, but ultimately compelling, about this contrast is that most, if not all, attractive-young-people-finding-themselves-in-a-big-city sitcoms revolve around these relatively stable characters like Eric and Stacey, by now so familiar that you kinda know people like them in real life. So when the ostensibly directionless, “just wingin’ it” hipster is juxtaposed with these tried-and-true characters, and you can relate to him on a more personal level than you ever could with Ross or Monica or Ted Mosby, you suddenly see yourself as a trope. Ugh, and then his references are spot on, and his one-liners kill, and then you’re watching the pilot for the first time and he drops that music journalism bomb and all you can do is yell at your TV but then not turn it off. Because it’s funny, and as much as you want to believe it is, it's actually not pandering to anyone, and the "Pants" people know that Arcade Fire isn’t performing at Music Hall of Williamsburg these days.

So it’s easy to be taken aback by "Pants" because it’s about a lifestyle and culture that prides itself on individualism and rejection of certain norms... a lifestyle that's already become commodified, even standardized. On the surface "Pants" seems like a consequence of those latter issues, but maybe the show’s existence is proof that this cultural movement [Editor's Note: Williamsburg is a cultural movement now???] that’s been building over the past decade-plus hasn’t so much cheapened but simply become a kind of pop culture in its own right. And there really isn’t anything necessarily wrong with that.

RJ: Kinda know people like them in real life? Try the vast overwhelming majority of my childhood and college friends. While most of them never were any sort of former “authentic punk” like Stacey, almost all of them are now young professionals working in banking or consulting, or drowning in 2L or clinicals. Yet they’re pop-cultural aware and consume with relatively careful curation; that Wavves exchange between Stacey and Jay happened in my life a few times almost exactly verbatim because my friends found Nathan Williams’ music on their own. The cultural lines that used to separate stale adulthood and “safe” career choices from hip, cool youth and a risky pursuit of passions and dreams are now blurred (I’m aware of “cool dads” but think of “superrad gnarbone dads” who take their kids to the skatepark with no helmets, let them eat cookies for breakfast, and bump Superchunk at Gymboree). I think you’re right, this is proof of a cultural movement that’s been building. [Editor's Note: Oh my God.] Many young adults take a path with “safe” career while intelligently and actively consuming culture. They’re not hipsters but they’re not exactly suits, and they’re certainly not suits just pretending to be hip. They’re something new and perhaps they’re the result of this movement that you point out.

So the question is: will "Pants" continue this blurred line? Or will it attempt to redefine those cultural boundaries between “hip” and “safe”? On one hand, seeing Jay and Tina’s successes may inspire Eric and Stacey to reject their “safer” paths, find their “true selves,” and relapse into freewheeling hipsterdom. But if Jay and Tina realize there’s a way to enter adulthood and domesticity without sacrificing their gnarly youth and authentic art tastes, wouldn’t that be more indicative of today’s culture, which has blurred the line where Stacey, Eric, and my friends exist between hipster and suit?

Jon: I want to see where they go with this dichotomy too, but based on the endearing portrayals of both sides (I suppose props should go here to creator David Rosen, who also wrote the book the show’s based on), I can’t imagine "Pants" singling out one as more “authentic” than the other. If "Pants" went the path of glorifying the indie-artistic-doobie-blowin’ lifestyle as a means of achieving self-actualization as opposed to the aspiring-doctor/yuppie weekend warrior, well I’d be out. Luckily, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here at all.

Though I dug the pilot, episode two wasn’t as solid: Eric and Stacey’s mattress plot allowed for some good jokes, but ultimately went nowhere; and while Jay and Tina’s sexcapades were pretty funny (i.e. the bartender Tibetan throat singing her ex’s name while boinking Jay), only the “Tina & The Intern” storyline was that compelling, albeit completely unrealistic—there’s no way a virgin could ever gaff so hard and still spit such courageous game like that to his boss. And get laid. Twice. I mean "Pants" is kind of absurd, enjoyably. No one’s boss would deliver a chop-licking monologue about nailing a pregnant woman, like Parnell does—but then we’ve all had fucked-up bosses.

But that leaves me with one last obnoxiously hyper-conscious question: Do I like "Pants" more because it’s written, acted and shot quite well and tells an engaging story? Or more because I get a narcissistic kick out of seeing an sensationalized version of the culture I live in—and maybe even parts my life—on-screen depicted with enough accuracy (the devil’s in the details, bro) that I feel like my life is important and legitimate and could totally be a sitcom? I dunno, probably a lot of both. Stoked for next week.

RJ: I’d tune out immediately if "Pants" became some self-righteous arms race of authenticity or fulfillment, but I don’t think it’ll come to that either. I’m a little afraid that the show might devolve into a hookup Chronicles of Gnarnia, but Jay’s “music journalism” plot looks to be the real force here, or so we (egotistically) hope. And of course, he still needs those pants back. Let’s be real, that narcissistic joy manifests so well because of the writing: it feels dangerously close to our real lives and cultural interests, adds heavy spice (because everyone knows music writers are really huge dweebs who would be terrified to fridge fuck), and drives us to consider our own journeys (which, really, have just begun). We’ll see if our lives and this culture are television worthy in the long run, but at least right now "Pants" shows they’re entertaining and substantial enough to warrant closer examination by both hipsters and non-hipsters alike. As two obnoxious, former-suburban, Willburg-livin’ altbros, we’ll take that iota of validation.

Jon Blistein and RJ Cubarrubia spend their afternoons at Billboard and have also written at places like RollingStone.com, The L Magazine, Impose and Nerve.com.

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2) Who is your favorite musical Jackson?
A) Michael Jackson: +0 points. B) Janet Jackson: +0 points. C) Wanda Jackson: +0 points. D) Jackson Browne: +5 points.

3) How many members of the Indigo Girls can you name?
For each one, +5 points.

4) Do you own any jazz records?
A) Yes, many: + 0 points. B) No, none: +3 points. C) I own one jazz album, “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis: +3 points. D) Yes, I own several Kenny G albums: +5 points.

4) Have you paid money to see the Beach Boys since “Kokomo” was released in 1988?
A) No: +0 points. B) Yes: +5 points.

5) Have you been to a Moody Blues concert, at any point in your life?
A) No: +0 points. B) Yes: +5 points.

6) Do you have a beard?
A) No: +0 points. B) Yes: +5 points.

7) Do you have a ponytail?
A) No: +0 points. B) Yes: +10 points.

8) Who is your favorite guitarist?
A) Jimi Hendrix: +0 points. B) Whoever is playing in Ozzy’s band: +1 point. C) Richie Sambora: +2 points. D) Guitars are passé, I listen only to electronic music from Berlin: +5 points.

9) Who do you think invented punk rock?
A) The Ramones: +0 points. B) The Stooges: +0 points. C) The Sex Pistols: +0 points. D) Green Day: +5 points.

10) At the gym, what playlist do you listen to?
A) Madonna: +0 points. B) Lady Gaga: +0 points. C) Rihanna: +0 points. D) Susan Boyle: +5 points.

11) The coolest new band I’ve heard lately is....
A) Micachu & The Shapes: +0 points. B) Fuck Buttons: +0 points. C) The xx: +0 points. D) Jefferson Starship: +5 points.

12) What is your favorite Bob Dylan album?
A) Blood on the Tracks: +0 points. B) Blonde on Blonde: +0 points. C) Time Out of Mind: +0 points. D) Greatest Hits, Volume Three: +5 points.

13) Rap is....
A) An expression of the modern black experience: +0 points. B) The greatest new art form of the last 30 years: +0 points. C) An evolution of ancient African traditions: +0 points. D) The last three letters in crap: +5 points.

14) Where did you get your AC/DC t-shirt?
A) Angus Young gave it to me backstage: +0 points. B) Stole it from my older brother: +0 points. C) Bought it at an AC/DC concert: +0 points. D) Bought it at Urban Outfitters: +5 points.

15) When it’s time to put on some “bedroom music,” what do you play?
A) Maxwell: +0. B) Alicia Keys: +0. C) D’Angelo: +0 points. D) Justin Bieber: +5.

TOTAL SCORE:

0-10: Take the quiz again, and this time tell the truth.

10-29: You could probably get by with a smaller iPod.

30-59: So, when did you become a music blogger?

60-85: You have totally garbage taste in music! Are you the guy who lives upstairs?

Rob Tannebaum is the co-author of I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. "Hugely readable and fun" says Pitchfork! "One of my favorite books of the year" says USA Today!

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I am out of my mind standing on a red carpet next to journalists from college outlets. I am really thirsty. I’ve never been on a red carpet and this carpet is black. I am not familiar with any of the artists. Who are these people? A publicist tells me the name of a band she wants me to talk to. I Google them. Wikipedia doesn’t even know who they are. I don’t have any questions prepared, and the only recording device I’m carrying is a notepad.

I ask Lil B “The Based God” if his stream-of-consciousness raps are inspired by a Dadaist tradition. He says his flow is focused on expressing himself to the fullest while spreading world peace. He shows me an amulet with beads. I ask if growing up in Berkeley made him New-Agey. He says “I’m a hippie to the max.”

A band with facial hair called Atlantic Line stop for a moment to talk. I don’t know what their music sounds like so I ask about beard maintenance. They suggest staying away from electric shavers and using aloe as after-shave. I am an amateur journalist at an amateur awards show.

Nic Harcourt from KCRW tells me he’s heading a department at MTV to put new artists' music into television shows. With the death of the recording industry, this seems like a viable way to make money. A publicist asks if I want to interview the producers of “Like a G6.”

The Friendly Fire ask if I was recording our rapport. I say no. They pull out their camera and interview me: “Where are we?” “The most prestigious award show in North American history... founded over 250 years ago: the Woodies....” They turn off their camera and walk away.

I tell Donald Glover his rap album reminds me of Bright Eyes because of its earnest commentary on the state of becoming famous. He thanks me for not comparing him to Drake.

I ask Wiz Khalifa if he’s the only rapper from North Dakota. He says he was born there but moved away when he was young. He asks if I was from North Dakota. I say I just really like reading Wikipedia.

I walk with a girl who works for websites that cater to teenagers into the college award show. I am disappointed that the beer is not free. The mohawked security guard tells me that there is no way I’m going up to the VIP area. I leave the venue while Wiz Khalifa performs his famous song.

Then I reunite with Internet people down the street to watch meme-to-musicians Gregory Brothers perform their chart-topping hit “Bed Intruder.”

Joshua Heller may be going to rehab after SxSW.

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As a certain demographic will know, calls for Ferro's head were instantaneous. Save for a few websites–ones frequented mostly by jock party animals–which had some mean-spirited, misogynistic laughs at Snooki's plight, by and large the public opinion was one of outrage. "How could someone do such a thing?" I remember my co-worker asking, his eyes narrowing as if in deep thought. On one of the countless blogs that weighed in on the Snooki Punch, someone posting as "Brad's Nightmare" wrote, "Brad Ferro is a fuckin bitch. Any guy that punches a girl has got a small dick and cant fuckin fight in the first place."

Eventually things got macro. The accusations grew to include both Ferro and MTV, which had profited off the subjugation of women for years, but never so openly. "[S]hould MTV have used the footage?" asked Jezebel's Irin Carmon. It turned out that the answer was no.

After initially airing Snooki's attack in a sneak preview of the season, MTV, amid fiery charges of sponsored misogyny, decided to stop showing that bit of violence entirely. It even went so far as to fade to black when the punch finally happened in episode four (not edit it out, mind you, but fade to black). Later, that episode was appended by a public service announcement. It read, "Violence against women in any form is a crime. If you or someone you know is being abused by a boyfriend, family member or total stranger, please call 911."

At first, this all made sense. But then came episode six.

Titled "Boardwalk Blowups," the centerpiece of episode six was Ronnie–the Magilla Gorilla to The Situation's Yogi Bear–beating the blood out of a guy in the middle of the Seaside Heights esplanade. MTV did not fade to black on this altercation; it instead zoomed in, the better to see Ronny knee his enemy in the face and, while straddling his chest, drop heavy blows into the man's jaw. (Editors did make sure to cut the parts where Ronny called his victim a "faggot" and a "queer," epithets later uncovered by TMZ.)

At the end of the episode, where a PSA warning against violence had been just two weeks prior, there was a beer commercial.

From there, the fists flew. In episode seven, J-Woww, in a drunken rage, gives a roundhouse hammer punch to The Situation's face. Episode eight found Ronny back at it, knocking a man unconscious as he and the castmates stumbled home from the clubs. "That's one shot!" Ronnie screamed victoriously as he literally skipped away from the body he'd just rendered lifeless and prone in the gutter.

MTV thought that was so cute that they ended up calling the entire episode "One Shot."

We're now just a few episodes into the Jersey Shore's second season, and already we're reminded of that old chestnut: You can take the Jersey Shore cast to Miami, but you can't stop them from assaulting each other and strangers nearly every day. Thus far, Angelina has smacked Pauly D in the face for not returning her affections and J-Woww has threatened to attack Angelina in her sleep. Previews of upcoming shows reveal that J-Woww and Sammi will tear one another's hair out in the kitchen. Also, J-Woww–she's really getting after it this time around!–and Snooki are currently the defendants in a lawsuit brought by a woman claiming they beat her in a Miami club in May. Throughout it all, since the Snooki punch, MTV has either done nothing or intentionally highlighted the brutality.

Based on MTV's censoring decisions in relation to the show, viewers can infer the following: a man hitting a woman is never OK; a woman hitting a man is fine, especially if she's drunk or emotionally vulnerable; a man hitting a man isn't just fine, it's exciting, and practically a matter of course when "queers" are talkin' shit; also–and this is the most important point–despite what was said earlier about calling the police if ever you see a woman being attacked, a woman hitting another woman is totally alright. They'll probably hug when they're sober!

Triaging and then tolerating certain random, relatively minor acts of violence in this manner isn't just problematic for the Jersey Shore cast and everyone in its immediate vicinity; it's also a profound reflection on what American society tolerates when speaking of much grander, much more despicable crimes. It's resulted in the degradation of the male body as an inherently brutal entity, something that, if not deserving of violence, should at least be prepared for combat at a moment's notice. The female body, on the other hand, remains sanctified, so much so that, at least on "Jersey Shore" (and "Teen Mom"), women hit, kick and choke men with impunity.

If you look closely, there's a sturdy bridge between J-Woww casually smashing The Situation in the jaw and the nonchalance with which people in polite society make rape jokes every time a male celebrity goes to prison. Try and imagine sketch comedy shows making light of a husband slicing off his wife's vagina the way they did when John Wayne Bobbitt was butchered.

Writing at Jezebel, I once asked, "Why is random violence-not premeditated, protracted violence, like war rapes and domestic abuse-something MTV should consider not showing when against women, but air at will when it's against men?" I was told a lot of things, but mostly that my thoughts were "patronizing" and "reeked of male privilege." I was told that I didn't understand the "structures of power" that apparently dictate why men hitting women is markedly worse than men hitting men. I was told, in bold letters, "The widespread socialization of men as violent and women as receptacles for that violence is why this violence is different." (I was also told to never come back.)

About a year before I asked that question, a man in Australia was killed when his wife set his genitals on fire while he was asleep, burning him alive in perhaps the most awful way possible. A writer at Jezebel briefly covered the murder, illustrating the post with the picture of a hot dog engulfed in flames. Beneath it, one commenter wrote, "That puts a new spin on 'fire crotch.'" Another wrote, "I am honestly kind of horrified at the levity with which this is being treated." And yet another opined, "Obviously this is NOT an amusing tale; however, here I am laughing at my work computer, trying to be quiet, with tears running down my face."

Cord Jefferson also writes at The Root.

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Big Star influenced other areas of pop culture as well. "In the Street," one of the songs from their 1972 debut album #1 Record was the theme song to "That '70s Show," re-recorded by fellow power-pop legends Cheap Trick. Plus, the title of Katy Perry's hit "California Gurls" is a nod to Big Star's "September Gurls."

"My manager, Bradford, he's from Mississippi, and he's a huge Big Star fan," Perry said. "And with the death of one of their members [Chilton], I had just written that song, and he's like, 'Katy, just for me, will you please title it 'California Gurls,' with a 'u'? People won't even know!' "

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