Gussie Audrey Gowen Manlove Brown, we hardly knew ye

February 25, 2011 5:07 PM

One seemingly innocuous video, briefly ruminating on the potential story behind a curious gravestone, leads fans of the VlogBrothers on an impromptu genealogy adventure.

A Google Doc tracks the group's progress over the course of the past few days, as they uncover the life story of a thrice-married Indianapolis woman, and finally track down her final resting place.

posted by litnerd (12 comments total)

Maybe she married Abe?
posted by LarryC at 5:18 PM on February 25, 2011

If, like me, you're wondering who these VlogBrothers/nerdfighter/whatever folks are, see here. They seem like good people.
posted by zamboni at 5:30 PM on February 25, 2011

I was so hoping it would shed some light on this.
posted by pjern at 5:56 PM on February 25, 2011

This is really fantastic.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:57 PM on February 25, 2011

Here's Hank's new video on the subject.
posted by miratime at 6:25 PM on February 25, 2011

Some headstones are unbearably tragic, and as much as I really want to know the backstories, maybe I don't.
posted by ColdChef at 6:41 PM on February 25, 2011

Here's Hank's new video on the subject.

The worst name I ever heard was the name of my close friend from high school, Anita Johnson.

The vlogbrothers have been growing on me lately. The first video linked in this post was probably the straw that broke the camel's back for John/Hank Green love.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:10 PM on February 25, 2011

Here's Hank's new video on the subject.

Protip: Do not edit out the pauses between sentences in your video. It will annoy your viewers.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:20 PM on February 25, 2011

Protip: Do not edit out the pauses between sentences in your video. It will annoy your viewers.

Hank Green kinda is a pro, though.

Also, based on the trademark nerdfighter cadence, I don't think they're all that worried about annoying their viewers.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:30 PM on February 25, 2011

charlie don't surf:

Protip: Do not edit out the pauses between sentences in your video. It will annoy your viewers.

"Pro" is a broad umbrella. Hank and John have ~500k subscribers to their YouTube channel, so about half a million viewers aren't annoyed. They're also the founders of VidCon, the national conference for creators of online videos.

It's likely that their target audience is different from yours. And that's okay.
posted by tzikeh at 1:20 AM on February 26, 2011

Everyone's story ends a tombstone.
posted by empath at 2:32 AM on February 26, 2011

Well, Hank and John are pros: John has book royalties coming in, but according to his vyou account, Hank's only real sources of income are youtube and things directly relating to nerdfighteria (i.e. DFTBA records). He is literally a professional youtuber.

That said: I always love posts about the vlogbrothers. This little saga was especially impressive, with people tracing the life story of a single woman over a couple of days. So awesome.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 4:08 PM on February 26, 2011