Come On, Let's Vogue

A crop of intern-starring shows from MTV such as The Hills and I'm From Rolling Stone has raised the profile of under- and unpaid learn-while-you-don't-earn student workers everywhere. At least the ones on TV do more than get coffee and photocopy.

The attempts to make more of that interest online deliver mixed results. In addition to the usual episode guides/photos/playlists for the RS show, MTV provides an almost entirely irrelevant arcade-style "drive to the intern interview" rally game (only cabdrivers drives in Manhattan), sponsored by Ford. Rolling Stone itself features a writing contest - for which the prize, inexplicably, is a guitar. (A finalist in last week's contest is 37, which seems a tad on the elderly side for an intern.)

The Hills enables shopping on SeenOn along with the usual. But the intern-enslaving publication in this case, Teen Vogue, is presenting a blog by its interns, and the results are fun, aspirational and brand-enhancing for the show, the mag and the interns themselves.

I wonder how many Conde Nast HR employees it took to shovel through this year's batch of intern applications?