Now I’m not someone who normally pays Robin Thicke any mind, but somehow this song burrowed its way into my head and won’t get out. It all started with a simple RadioShack commercial for the Beats Pill speaker. Since I’ve gotten a DVR I rarely watch any commercials on TV anymore since I usually just fast-forward through them to get back to my shows, but this is one of those odd commercials that actually grabbed my attention. The song is a total earworm, simple and catchy and fun to sing/hum along to; the visuals of the video are eye-popping and really graphic with the bold splashes of red on the white backdrop; the editing and flow of the video is constantly pulling your eyes and attention in different directions; and–let’s not beat around the bush any longer–the models are really hot. I’ll admit it, my curiosity about them was what inspired me to Google the video in the first place.

Now imagine my surprise when I discovered that there’s actually a controversial unrated version of the official music video for “Blurred Lines”–the song that’s featured in this RadioShack commercial–that’s spreading virally across the internet featuring those very same models prancing around topless. OK, now you’ve got my attention. It goes without saying that this video is pretty NSFW.

That video was promptly taken off of YouTube, which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense because as you can obviously see it’s been reposted a million times since. YouTube did the same thing with Justin Timberlake’s new video, also featuring lots of female nudity, which they then promptly unblocked a few days later after people protested. What’s the deal, YouTube? I get not wanting to be confused with PornHub or YouPorn but at the same time there’s nudity all over YouTube. I’ve posted plenty of videos from YouTube on this very blog featuring nudity so it would make a lot more sense if they came up with a more comprehensive rule set for these situations than just willy-nilly pulling any video that suddenly becomes popular.

If you want to see the official video sans nudity, check out the sfw version below:

Now, obviously it was the pretty ladies that got me watching these videos in the first place, but after hearing the same song over and over again after watching all of these various videos I started to come to the realization that “Blurred Lines” is actually a really, really good song. It’s super funky and like Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” it manages to sound retro and brand new and classic all at the same time, a rare feat. Both the song and all of these different videos are really fun. Even if your initial reaction is to protest the overtly sexist/sexual visuals take a closer look at how much fun everyone is having. The whole thing is rather tongue-in-cheek and cheeky; sexist, but sexist in a fun Benny Hill kind of way where everyone, the girls included, seem to be in on the joke. Maybe you disagree, but I think this song is a whole lot of fun.