The Chive's Smut With a Smile

The guy applying to be an intern is locked in the conference room. “Leave him in there for a while. I want him to sweat,” says John Resig, 35, co-founder and president of the Chive, a website based in Austin, Tex. Resig doesn’t mean he wants the guy to be nervous—that’s already been accomplished—he means he literally wants the kid to sweat through his shirt. “I want a big sweat mark right here,” Resig says, gesturing to his belly.

When the Chive posts an internship opening, more than 2,500 people usually apply. To thin the résumé pile, and because he finds it funny, Resig resorts to mild hazing. He wants to know how far he can push people. But the kid just refuses to sweat. Word around the office is that he’s bro-lit author Tucker Max’s assistant, and he came to the Chive because he thought a wildly popular website built on pinup-style self-portraits submitted by women and blog posts on subjects such as “Kids, they’re like dogs that can sorta talk” and “Soooo … you got wasted” would be a fun place to work. It’s a crowdsourced, Internet version of a lad magazine—the Maxim of the 21st century.