The
Darwin Awards are a manifestation of
Internet humor. They are a tribute to those members of the species
Homo sapiens who have generously contributed to the well-being of the
gene pool by removing themselves from it. This is optimally done in a spectacularly stupid fashion: the more imbecilic the cause of premature demise, the better the chances of an individual scooping the big prize. Although some of the better-known Darwin award recipients have proven to be fictitious (see
Urban legends), the exploits of a great many award winners have been independently verified from original source material.
While most Darwin winners win the award posthumously, death is not required as the awardee only has to remove themselves from the gene pool. (In some cases, the winners rendered themselves unable to procreate, but still alive.)
The Awards are the creation of Wendy Northcutt[?], and have spawned two books.
External links
Books
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is available under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License