For starters, watch with your kinda sorta definitely not boyfriend

Cosmopolitan recently threw together a few recipes to have, in their words, “the ultimate Girls viewing party.” That’s all well and good we guess, but who on the show ever cooked or baked anything? No, if you want to have a viewing party that really captures the spirit of the show, you should come to people who would know what it means to struggle and sacrifice your dignity to the internet. So here are some tips from our staff to help you truly enjoy the misadventures of BK’s comic foursome. (more…)

Your rent is paid and you’re ready to take on the world.

As we previously noted, the sexual hijinks and financial emptiness (or is it the other way around?) of Girls is coming back to our pictocubes illegal downloads parents’ HBO Go accounts this year. Sunday in fact. And because they know we can use the money so as to better focus on our memoirs, HBO is going to give you a free year of rent just for following them on Twitter. (more…)

HBO’s Girls has made a point to cast more diversely in its second season. Apparently all that lobbying from the unicycle-riding Bob Ross-type lobby really got through to them. The New York Observer dug up these recent casting notices for the second season of girls, and they are, uh, oddly specific. (more…)

Stoop life.

If you’ve noticed your internet connection has been slow over the past few months, that’s because every 20 seconds someone was hogging all your bandwidth by uploading another 3,000-word Girls think piece. And it turns out old white dudes in New England may have been reading all those, because NY Magazine reports white guys over 50 made up most of the viewing audience for the show, which ended its first season on Sunday. I don’t have much more to say about it because I’ve only seen the first two episodes, because streaming Girls is not something I’m willing to risk getting busted over (fantasy medieval soap operas with baby dragons, however…). But we know a lot of you don’t have that fancy HBO subscription either. So let’s do an informal end of season roundup: did you watch the show? How did you see it: HBOGo,torrenting, a friend’s house or something even more clever? And if you have HBO, can we come over and watch True Blood all summer? (more…)

Imagine this, but with more Lena Dunham wannabes.

Remember when tourists used to go on Sex and the City tours and sip $18 Cosmos at some once-shmancy-now-B&T Meat Packing lounge and buy ginormous cupcakes at Magnolia and chastely giggle at gigantic black rubber dildos in sex shops? What seemed so hip back then is eye-rollingly outdated now (as pointed out in this astute-yet-hilarious BuzzFeed article). In 2012 it’s hip to be broke. Lena Dunham is the Carrie Bradshaw of the Millennial generation and Brooklyn is the city. Luckily WNYC is crowd-sourcing an HBO Girls map of places the cast hangs out and films around Brooklyn that the double-decker tour bus industry can market to midwestern tourists as the “real” Brooklyn experience. (more…)

Our friend Olive Hui was an extra in a Brooklyn party scene on the episode of Girls scheduled to air this Sunday and took this video of some late-night singalong in the extras’ holding area (and not on the actual set, which would be against the rules). She says: “Overnight shoots are fun but inevitably rough. People were delirious. A small singing circle started in the middle of the holding area where we keep all our belongings towards the end of the night. A guitar & drumsticks were all we had. Cee-Lo Green’s “F*&# You” happened to be the last song of the night before we were wrapped.”

Maybe it’s the Cee-Lo, but this video seems more diverse than I’ve seen on the show; plus it’s really cute. Say it with me now: “I see you drivin’ around town with the Girls I love…” (more…)

White goils.

Of all the 68 billion words written about Girls since it debuted April 15, the one that seemed to generate the most heat was Jenna Wortham’s bit for The Hairpin that begrudged the blinding whiteness of the show set in Greenpoint. So to address that criticism, Lena Dunham and crew are taking a strategy from comic book tactics: the show’s getting a retcon! The show has already started filming season two in Greenpoint and The Observer points us to this official casting notice posted to Backstage.com, looking for, and I quote, “HIPSTERS.”

Seeking—Hipster Types: male and female, 18-30s, all ethnicities, all types, specifically seeking people with tattoos, piercings, colored hair, and unique looks. Young Adult (ages 18-29), Thirties (ages 30-39). Caucasian/White, African-American/Black, Latin/Hispanic/South American, Asian, Native American, European, Middle Eastern, Indian/South Asian, Other.

You see? Brooklyn was diverse this whole time! (more…)

If you saw Lena Dunham’s outfit on the first Girls episode and thought Gah! That is truly awful! you now have someone to blame. On Fashion Etc., Girls costume designer Jenn Rogien says she shopped Beacon’s Closet to get just the right look for the Greenpoint-livin’ Dunham (Hannah) and her crew. (For those who missed it, Hannah rocked a floral Western-style top, an ill-fitting mini, purplish tights and flat granny boots with white socks peeking out the top.) ”We were probably at Atlantis Attic and Beacon’s Closet for every episode because it’s the right stuff, that’s where those girls would go,” Rogien tells the fashion news site. (more…)

OMG did you watch? Will you watch today once it shows up online? Did you recognize the India Street, Greenpoint neighborhood where Lena Dunham’s character lives, or the one near St. John’s in Prospect Heights where her awkward sex friend lives? Did you see the Brooklyn Brewery product placement in the bodega scene? Did you cringe at the scene where Dunham’s Hannah asked her parents for an absurd amount of money to live off of ($1,100 a month) or did you cheer her along in brokester solidarity?

We all sat down to watch the premier last night and realized it is hard, as a website staffed by broke and struggling 20-and-30 somethings, to not take the hype (and there was a lot of it) around HBO’s new series Girls personally, and to expect something big. And all told last night, we were left feeling a little … flat, but curious enough to keep tuning in. This has been a year of shows aiming to capture the broke-in-Brooklyn lifestyle, from CBS’ ghastly 2 Broke Girls to MTV’s glossy and smooth version in I Just Want My Pants Back. Of these, there’s no doubt Girls at least goes for the gritty jugular, portraying awkward, unfulfilling sex scenes and a slice of urban female friendship that involves eating cupcakes in the tub. But is this generation doomed to forever be portrayed in popular media as some sort of whiny, un-self-sustaining succubus class with a sense of entitlement, a “generational minstrel show,” as Dave put it? Then again, would any of you watch a TV show about 24-year-olds who work at Trader Joe’s, take Gotham Writers’ Workshop classes at night and start three blogs to try to get their writing career off the ground?

It is slightly annoying that, especially here in Brooklyn, where the sense of entrepreneurship is high and many people chase down their dreams through back alleys of shitty jobs and hard scrabble, we have to keep seeing people on TV who expect things to be handed to them, and sulk when they’re denied. (more…)

Don't worry, Girls, you can still see yourselves on TV.

The No. 1 rule of premium cable is that you do not give away your programming for free, lest you ruin the whole exclusive feeling you get out of paying extra every month to watch vampire or fantasy epic soap operas. Unless, of course, the prime target for your show is a demographic that by and large does not own teevees, especially not ones with fancy cable machines. So, young, broke, TV-less people of Brooklyn, Girls, Lena Dunhan’s much-hyped show that’s supposed to be about your life is debuting on Sunday. But HBO is making an unusual move and by letting you watch the first episode online for free the day after it airs (along with the pilot of Veep). The show will be available on HBO.com, YouTube, DailyMotion, TV.com, and elsewhere. Perhaps they’re wagering you’ll get so hooked you’ll pay for it after that?