Illinois Breeds Tiger Blood Interns

Three locals vie for Sheen's eight-week internship gig

Forget New York or L.A.

Charlie Sheen's "tiger blood" summer intern could be #winning here in Illinois.

More than 74,000 people applied for the position to work alongside Sheen with a 75-word explanation of why they should get picked. Of 250 finalists, these three made it to the third round.

The paid internship will last eight weeks and, according to the description, the intern will "work closely with Charlie Sheen in leveraging his social network."

As part of the next round of competition, candidates must produce a YouTube video answering one of three questions relating to their social media chops. Here's what Mike Castro, Alex Broches and Mike Zima did to get here.

  • Alex Broches, 23, started the social networking site, collegejunkee.com, from his mom's basement in Sycamore while still at Northern Illinois University. Broches applied for the internship as a joke, and in the first round, he fired off a quick, "Doing a MTV show on my socialnetworkingsite/andy dicks social media intern." That's right. Broches landed an episode on MTV's "True Life" that's scheduled to air in August and became Andy Dick's unpaid social media intern. All from his mom's basement, where he still works.
     



  • Skokie native Mike Zima could probably lay claim to creating one of the slickest videos in the competition. It was inspired by Minnesota politician Tim Pawlenty's Courage to Stand and Tiger Woods' I'm Sorry video, and the Columbia College junior had very little time to write, shoot and edit the final product last week. He hasn't even thought about what he'll do if he doesn't get the gig this summer. Only "winning" is on his mind. "I can relate to Sheen's wild, rock-star attitude," Zima says. "I thought I might as well give it a shot. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't at least give it a shot."
  • Mike Castro, 23, a Glenview native, graduated from Southern Illinois University. Castro lives in St. Louis and is the social media director for a local radio station. He thinks Sheen "is just freaking hysterical" and says he would use social media to create awareness and raise money in the aftermath of a global disaster. He also has a taste for "tiger blood," as evidenced by the toast at the end of his video.

 

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