Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the i-don't-wanna-be-a-candidate dept.
cmuncey writes "Salon has two articles about those perennial geek favorites, the Darwin Awards. This includes an interview with "Darwin" and their current favorites from the winners and nominees. (The official site is here.) Any nominations that they have missed? "
The guy who tried to get a first post and tripped over the cables connecting his monitor and knocked himself out when the monitor fell on him, and then he, uh, became impotent due to a bizarre cat-related event straight afterwards.
I always thought that this particular exercise was a pretty funny idea. I was able to enjoy it primarily because I DID think that they were all fabricated (I still believe that many are). However, two years ago I was sharing it with one of my friends who I knew was from one of the towns mentioned (Woodbridge, VA, site of the death of a young man who liked to dig pits on the beach and sit in them)and, to my surprise, it was a good friend of his. I guess that the deaths are still humorous to some, but after seeing that these are actual deaths that are being laughed at, they have lost all their comic appeal to me...
That's what I am. This horrible, senseless celebration of death shouldn't be allowed.
There. I've said it, so no-one else needs to. So let's get on with the business of laughing at morons.
My own personal favourite will always be actor Jon Erik Hexum (sp?), who shot himself in the head with a blank, cunningly forgetting that blanks are lethal up to a few metres. He was starring in some godawful series about models and spies at the time; the title escapes me but I still wake up screaming when the dialogue haunts my dreams.
However, as a way to go I reckon autoerotic asphyxiation has yet to be beaten (so to speak). What better way to be remembered than with your eyes bulging, and your tongue and your dick hanging out?
Re:I used to laugh -- me too
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
A while ago, a friend on the net said that a friend of theirs had died. They recounted the tale, which was awful. Shortly after, I saw a chewed-up version of this circulating on the Darwin nominees list that someone forwarded to me. That's the first time I realised that at least some of the stories were at least partly true. Previously I'd just thought that giggling at urban legends was a bit pathetic. Since this time I knew what the friends were putting up with (prurient media interest and police interest at a time when they had just lost a friend) I didn't find it remotely funny. I realise that much humour is derived from slapstick and pratfalls, but I just don't like it. I don't watch the shows on TV which have home videos of people doing stupid things for the same reason.
Someone is going to tell me to 'lighten up' now. This being Slashdot, it will be put less politely. But when you laugh at this lot, bear in mind that half of them were done whilst drunk (have you never done something life-threatening when drunk yourself? It might be you next time...) and all of them involve people who had relatives and friends who had thousands of people laughing whilst they dealt with someone's death. Of course, this is Slashdot, where the discussion of one person's death became the subject most riddled with the most appalling comments, so I suppose it's fit fodder for here. Go ahead and laugh. My friend lost a friend.
I realise that the post is probably a troll. With that in mind, I'm still going to reply.:)
Do you think being blind to that which God has created and set in motion is faith? To deny the existance of evolution and natural selection is to deny one of the most grand parts of God's creation. If anyone has been misled, it is you; for you have thrown out those things that are clearly evidenced in the world that God created. God wants you to have faith, but God certainly does not want one to dismiss what they can see and feel. Do you not believe that God is capable of creating a system where the most desirable traits are passed on and emphasised, and the least desirable are phased out?
It is my belief that this particular Anonymous Coward is a member of the Kansas Board of Education.:)
o/~ So tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699! o/~
My all time favorite Stupidity Award (non-fatal) nomination was one that happenend near here in Ceres, CA in the early 90's. Custodians at a elementary school there caught a gopher that had been causing problems. (No, now that you ask, none of them looked like Bill Murray.) Their problem was what to do to get rid of it.
You see they didn't want to stand around whacking it with shovels while the kids watched. So, being the mental giants they were, they put the animal in a bucket, and took it to a storage room. There they decided to gas/freeze it to death using a spray for freezing chewing gum on sidewalks so it can be chipped off. They closed the metal door behind them and started spraying into the bucket. Unfortunately they also decided to do something else (in the interests of sound time management, of course) they couldn't do in front of the kids.
They lit up some cigarettes.
Well, that got a response. If they had bothered to read the labels, they would have known that the propellant (good name in this case) in the spray cans was quite flammable. Maybe propane. The resulting detonation blew the door completely off its hinges, and put the custodians in the hospital for a day.
Oh, and the gopher? According to the Modesto Bee, witnesses stated that the animal not only survivied the incident, but was last seen crossing the road in front of the school, trying to get away at a high rate of speed. Smart move.
As the Salon story may mention, the JATO Impala urban legend is the all time most popular (and most submitted) Darwin Award story. There is a great, if long, story here by someone who claims to have started the story. I have rarely laughed so hard.
Darwin awards going downhill
by
Frank+Sullivan
·
· Score: 5
I just got the awards in my mail this morning, and couldn't believe it... the first runner-up is *still alive*!!! Worse, his genitalia are still intact, and he might still breed (he only blew his face off with the blasting cap in his mouth). That, my friends, is unworthy of a Darwin Award.
Way back when they first started, nominees actually had to die in order to be considered. A few years later, they added the "honorable mention" category for those who merely maimed themselves. But this year, they seem to be handing out full nominations for mere stupidity... i saw nominations this year that involved no bodily harm whatsoever! (like the guy who tried to steal the letters from the board for his mug shots)
I really hope the Darwin Awards staff will reconsider their methodology and return to their previous high standards, lest they become another Golden Globe, or worse yet, America's Funniest Home Videos.
--- 120 chars is barely sufficient
-- Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
Try the REAL Darwin List!
by
Tackhead
·
· Score: 5
If you enjoyed the site referenced in the Salon article, try the real McCoy. The Cult of Father Darwin Mailing List has been around for a good many years, and we love a good culling.
Clueless twits with the "FAQs are for pussies" gene need not apply. Before signing on, for the love of Uncle Chuck, please read The CoFD FAQ.
(On second thought, don't bother. We love flaming helminthic parasites who can't read FAQs into smoldering piles of ash...)
I can assure you that, unlike www.darwinawards.com , the CoFD has never, and will never pull any punches when it comes to "sensitive" deaths. Hell, we had a fsckin' field day over the "don't wear a seatbelt and let your chauffeur drive drunk" gene (ex-Princess Die), the "trees are your friends" gene (Sonny Bono, $DEADKENNEDY), and the "Hey, I can fly in this fog" gene ($DEADKENNEDY, closely related to "Hey, I can drive" gene posessed by yet another $DEADKENNEDY).
For Y2K, I personally celebrated by laughing heartily at news footage of some dumb bloke in California standing up on a light pole and reaching up to grab a couple of nearby wires for support. Presumably, he had the "electrical safety is for pussies" gene. Darwin be Praised, he fell down and went boom (actually, "zzap-thud" was more like it) shortly afterwards. Verily, I could almost hear the Voice of Darwin echoing in the Y2K crowd. YOU. Yes, YOU, on the streetlight. Outa the gene pool. NOW.
For any who object - I quote the final lines of the CoFD FAQ:
"Finally? There is no finally, for Evolution, under the guiding hand of the Father continues ever on; you can but stave off the inevitable for a few decades, but eventually your time will come and you will die.
It is up to you to determine if your genetic line will be found Worthy, or whether you will become a statistic in some journalist's copysheet and a scorned entry in this list.
Go forth and multiply."
Trainsurfing ("Choose death...")
by
acb
·
· Score: 3
Many years ago, there was an incident in Melbourne, Australia, in which a teenager eliminated himself from the gene pool in a similar fashion. He was a member of a graffiti gang, who snuck into train yards to do aerosol art/vandalise trains; on the side, they would do all sorts of other train-related tricks, such as lever open the doors of moving trains and climb onto the roof.
Now this guy, apparently having smoked a little too much dope, decided that it would be really cool to go surfing in the City Loop (the underground section of the Melbourne train system, running under the city centre). He did not count on the height of the tunnel abruptly decreasing ahead of him. He hit a wall of concrete face first at something like 60km/h. Apparently he died some hours later in hospital.
There were memorial aerosol-art murals to him all over the Melbourne train system for several years. Guess they didn't have Darwin Awards back then...
The fatal flaw with the Darwin Awards is obvious to anyone who has read The Selfish Gene (or is otherwise familiar with genetics).
They don't remove themselves from the gene pool, if they have already reproduced. Hell, if they orphan their children, then someone else has to take care of their offspring. They're ahead.
Yes, but the stories are embellished. I live in College Station, TX and attend Texas A&M University. We have a tradition of building and burning a bonfire every year, and this year it fell, killing and harming several of us. The story got to Darwin and they put it on the site, however it was grossly exaggerated and thrown well out of context. Not only that, but they flat out lied about some things, in order to make the story more amusing. Now I've always thought the Darwin Awards were funny, but if our situation is any indication, their complete exaggeration of truly horrible events in order to get some laughs is simply not laughable.
Slashdot Mirror
The guy who tried to get a first post and tripped over the cables connecting his monitor and knocked himself out when the monitor fell on him, and then he, uh, became impotent due to a bizarre cat-related event straight afterwards.
Invicta{HOG}
That's what I am. This horrible, senseless celebration of death shouldn't be allowed.
There. I've said it, so no-one else needs to. So let's get on with the business of laughing at morons.
My own personal favourite will always be actor Jon Erik Hexum (sp?), who shot himself in the head with a blank, cunningly forgetting that blanks are lethal up to a few metres. He was starring in some godawful series about models and spies at the time; the title escapes me but I still wake up screaming when the dialogue haunts my dreams.
However, as a way to go I reckon autoerotic asphyxiation has yet to be beaten (so to speak). What better way to be remembered than with your eyes bulging, and your tongue and your dick hanging out?
Someone is going to tell me to 'lighten up' now. This being Slashdot, it will be put less politely. But when you laugh at this lot, bear in mind that half of them were done whilst drunk (have you never done something life-threatening when drunk yourself? It might be you next time...) and all of them involve people who had relatives and friends who had thousands of people laughing whilst they dealt with someone's death. Of course, this is Slashdot, where the discussion of one person's death became the subject most riddled with the most appalling comments, so I suppose it's fit fodder for here. Go ahead and laugh. My friend lost a friend.
Do you think being blind to that which God has created and set in motion is faith? To deny the existance of evolution and natural selection is to deny one of the most grand parts of God's creation. If anyone has been misled, it is you; for you have thrown out those things that are clearly evidenced in the world that God created. God wants you to have faith, but God certainly does not want one to dismiss what they can see and feel. Do you not believe that God is capable of creating a system where the most desirable traits are passed on and emphasised, and the least desirable are phased out?
It is my belief that this particular Anonymous Coward is a member of the Kansas Board of Education. :)
o/~ So tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699! o/~
--
Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
You see they didn't want to stand around whacking it with shovels while the kids watched. So, being the mental giants they were, they put the animal in a bucket, and took it to a storage room. There they decided to gas/freeze it to death using a spray for freezing chewing gum on sidewalks so it can be chipped off. They closed the metal door behind them and started spraying into the bucket. Unfortunately they also decided to do something else (in the interests of sound time management, of course) they couldn't do in front of the kids.
They lit up some cigarettes.
Well, that got a response. If they had bothered to read the labels, they would have known that the propellant (good name in this case) in the spray cans was quite flammable. Maybe propane. The resulting detonation blew the door completely off its hinges, and put the custodians in the hospital for a day.
Oh, and the gopher? According to the Modesto Bee, witnesses stated that the animal not only survivied the incident, but was last seen crossing the road in front of the school, trying to get away at a high rate of speed. Smart move.
As the Salon story may mention, the JATO Impala urban legend is the all time most popular (and most submitted) Darwin Award story. There is a great, if long, story here by someone who claims to have started the story. I have rarely laughed so hard.
I just got the awards in my mail this morning, and couldn't believe it... the first runner-up is *still alive*!!! Worse, his genitalia are still intact, and he might still breed (he only blew his face off with the blasting cap in his mouth). That, my friends, is unworthy of a Darwin Award.
Way back when they first started, nominees actually had to die in order to be considered. A few years later, they added the "honorable mention" category for those who merely maimed themselves. But this year, they seem to be handing out full nominations for mere stupidity... i saw nominations this year that involved no bodily harm whatsoever! (like the guy who tried to steal the letters from the board for his mug shots)
I really hope the Darwin Awards staff will reconsider their methodology and return to their previous high standards, lest they become another Golden Globe, or worse yet, America's Funniest Home Videos.
---
120
chars is barely sufficient
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
Clueless twits with the "FAQs are for pussies" gene need not apply. Before signing on, for the love of Uncle Chuck, please read The CoFD FAQ.
(On second thought, don't bother. We love flaming helminthic parasites who can't read FAQs into smoldering piles of ash...)
I can assure you that, unlike www.darwinawards.com , the CoFD has never, and will never pull any punches when it comes to "sensitive" deaths. Hell, we had a fsckin' field day over the "don't wear a seatbelt and let your chauffeur drive drunk" gene (ex-Princess Die), the "trees are your friends" gene (Sonny Bono, $DEADKENNEDY), and the "Hey, I can fly in this fog" gene ($DEADKENNEDY, closely related to "Hey, I can drive" gene posessed by yet another $DEADKENNEDY).
For Y2K, I personally celebrated by laughing heartily at news footage of some dumb bloke in California standing up on a light pole and reaching up to grab a couple of nearby wires for support. Presumably, he had the "electrical safety is for pussies" gene. Darwin be Praised, he fell down and went boom (actually, "zzap-thud" was more like it) shortly afterwards. Verily, I could almost hear the Voice of Darwin echoing in the Y2K crowd. YOU. Yes, YOU, on the streetlight. Outa the gene pool. NOW.
For any who object - I quote the final lines of the CoFD FAQ:
Many years ago, there was an incident in Melbourne, Australia, in which a teenager eliminated himself from the gene pool in a similar fashion. He was a member of a graffiti gang, who snuck into train yards to do aerosol art/vandalise trains; on the side, they would do all sorts of other train-related tricks, such as lever open the doors of moving trains and climb onto the roof.
Now this guy, apparently having smoked a little too much dope, decided that it would be really cool to go surfing in the City Loop (the underground section of the Melbourne train system, running under the city centre). He did not count on the height of the tunnel abruptly decreasing ahead of him. He hit a wall of concrete face first at something like 60km/h. Apparently he died some hours later in hospital.
There were memorial aerosol-art murals to him all over the Melbourne train system for several years. Guess they didn't have Darwin Awards back then...
The fatal flaw with the Darwin Awards is obvious to anyone who has read The Selfish Gene (or is otherwise familiar with genetics).
They don't remove themselves from the gene pool, if they have already reproduced. Hell, if they orphan their children, then someone else has to take care of their offspring. They're ahead.
--
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Yes, but the stories are embellished. I live in College Station, TX and attend Texas A&M University. We have a tradition of building and burning a bonfire every year, and this year it fell, killing and harming several of us. The story got to Darwin and they put it on the site, however it was grossly exaggerated and thrown well out of context. Not only that, but they flat out lied about some things, in order to make the story more amusing.
Now I've always thought the Darwin Awards were funny, but if our situation is any indication, their complete exaggeration of truly horrible events in order to get some laughs is simply not laughable.