Darwin Awards

[Arm0r]

Some of this shit will make you LOL your head off.

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/

enjoy.

[DaHanG]

Yeah, some of them are so ridiculous I wonder if they're all true. You can win a Nobel Prize for your work in physics, and you also win a Darwin Award. Gotta love the wide spectrum of human intellect.

[[BTF]Sigma]

LOL at the 2008 runner up. The guy ran towards a train waving his hands to get it to stop.

[peewee_RotA]

Yeah, some of them are so ridiculous I wonder if they're all true.

Most of them are not, and most of them do not originate from this website. They are usually made up of old folk tales that either have a grain of truth, or no truth at all, and get embellished  further as time goes on. Not knowing which ones are true or false makes the whole experience much funnier.

I believe that the ones featured in the movie were some of the true stories. The movie is pretty funny, but not at all what you expect. Adam and Jamie from Myth Busters have cameos!
 

[quadz]

Yeah, some of them are so ridiculous I wonder if they're all true.

Most of them are not, and most of them do not originate from this website. They are usually made up of old folk tales that either have a grain of truth, or no truth at all, and get embellished  further as time goes on. Not knowing which ones are true or false makes the whole experience much funnier.

At the top of each entry is a heading that claims whether or not the story has been "Confirmed True".  (On the other hand, they don't actually cite sources...)

[The Happy Friar]

some of the unconfirmed ones I could very well see as being true just from other true events I've read. 

One I don't believe is true is the rabbit & snowmobile ones.  why?  Because rabbits don't run straight & snowmobiles wouldn't turn anywhere near fast enough to be close to a rabbit for more then a few seconds.  Rabbits normally never go in empty spaces either, they hide behind something.  So unless these guys were snowmobilling through pricker bushes & small trees...   

[peewee_RotA]

At the top of each entry is a heading that claims whether or not the story has been "Confirmed True".  (On the other hand, they don't actually cite sources...)

Exactly. I looked into it back in 2006 when the 2005 awards were just released. Almost all of these stories fall into the exact definition of a cautionary folk tale:
"There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, location, or thing is said to be dangerous. Then, the narrative itself is told: someone disregarded the warning and performed the forbidden act. Finally, the violator comes to an unpleasant fate, which is frequently related in large and grisly detail"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cautionary_tale

Another thing to note is that most Darwin awards originate as chain letters, in fact the entire idea was originally a collection of chain letters. The main function of Darwinawards.com is to prevent a year of Darwin awards from repeating, which is a very common practice. If someone receives the 2004 darwin awards in 2005 and decides to forward the same e-mail later, they usually just update the year and send it off.

Also notice how all of the stories are told from a story telling perspective. Some (such as rub the mint) are told in first person while others are told from 3rd person, some being omniscient and some being close. Basically they are always told in an obvious narrative that resembles a "friend of a friend" situation, and you know what that means.

Also note that the narratives are never consistent. They are not from the same writer. Cracked.com is a similar example in which factual elements are embellished into a story. However, the writing style is consistent. So each story is obviously written by the same team of writers, in which you can verify and develop trust in that team to provide accurate facts. With multiple unknown writers, there is no way to verify or develop any trust in sources.

I probably should have just quoted this to begin with:
"However, despite claiming veracity as a requirement, most submitted stories are not verified against reliable published sources, and the majority of them are fictional."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_awards

some of the unconfirmed ones I could very well see as being true just from other true events I've read. 

I assume that most of the stories told in a fashion similar to a paraphrased news article are based on a true story and embellished with minor details like location and names changed. Also in many of the true stories that things like this get based on, the "victim" lives. They really are just cautionary tales, which is why I've liked to read them from time to time. For example, I never knew to run along the tracks towards the train so that the parts of the car that are hit do not go flying in your direction. Something you'll see as a theme in one of the years (I think it's 2004) is to ALWAYS OBEY A SIGN THAT SAYS "WARNING!"

Another thing to note, although I apologize if it sounds like I'm insulting people's intelligence. If it sounds "so stupid that it has to be true", remember that the last story that you heard that is "so stupid that it has to be true" was probably read in a chain letter. The reason why chain letters are written from "a friend of a friend" is because it's an effective way to trick people. If your friend reads a chain letter forwarded from his father. Then he will instinctively base the validity of the story on how much he trusts his father. Not on how much he trusts the original author. And when your friend tells you, you will do the same. It's human nature. It's the same as the "only in America" chain letter. Most of those stories are either false, or are true but in fact happened in a country other than the US. So there is a false impression of "it's so stupid that it has to be true."

[The Happy Friar]

I remember hearing about the hunter who shot himself while trying to club his dog.    I don't remember the details though!  But we've had similar stuff happen around here (I'm sure peewee has similar things happen too).

The one with the three privates, tree & flying I could see as true, but not exactly as it was done.  Just because people do lots of stupid things when they do NOT know how to fall trees properly!   I do not see the one with the guy who tried to use his truck as a winch as true though because....  odds are he's have a winch!  Or try to just pull it first.   True pruner I could see as true because, again, because people who don't use certain equipment on a regular basis don't act responsibility most of the time.