Drinking the Koolaide?

[Truman01]

I see people use the phrase, "drinking the koolaide" all the time, and I wonder how many people really remember where that phrase originated. Of course if you were around in the 70's you probably remember the event.

So, if you Know that you know, feel free to vote but don't post the answer. If you are just using it from context, I'm interested to see what you think it means.


I'm not trying to embarrass anyone, I'm just curious about how a phrase like this goes from an actual event to something that we use in conversation but have no memory of why it means what it means.

Have fun with this one.

TC

[Truman01]

1. deleted

[bemildred]

2. On the Jonestown Murder-Suicides

http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/jonestn1.htm

[Truman01]

3. Now Mildred.

I told you not to tell, I wanted to see what some of the younger DU'ers thought.

[bemildred]

7. Sorry. I just have a need to spread the word.

I must say the change in the poll is interesting. Jim Jones
has always seemed the quintessential cult-leader to me.

[Truman01]

11. I just had an after thought that I could change it, but it didn't delete

the votes

[Comicstripper]

13. I'm 16, and I knew, but you're wrong

Jim Jones and the Peoples' Temple drank a generic version called "Flavor-Aide."
I am annoyed by this expression. It's not only cliche, but it's not metaphorically sound. It's such a popular phrase; ironic that you criticize others for "drinking the Kool-Aide" while you seem to be downing it yourself.

[Truman01]

17. What is ironic, is that you can't read.

I didn't accuse anyone of "drinking koolaide." Please tell me, Miss 16 year old know it all; where did you read about the "flavor-aide" story? You might well be right, I don't know. I have just found people on here who didn't have any idea where "koolaide" figured in.

TC

[Comicstripper]

24. Couple points

1) That's Mr. Sixteen-year-old know-it-all.

2)Right here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

"Jones then founded Jonestown in Guyana; the town was a closed-in society of Jones' followers (13 followers left Jonestown with a reporter due to the fact that they 'wanted out') where Jim Jones and all of Jonestown committed suicide or murder on Jones's instructions by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor Aid (a cheaper version of Kool-Aid, with which it is often confused in this particular situation) in 1978 and shooting each other to death."

3)In response to your other, snippier comment, I am fully aware that DC is not in Maryland. I live in Montgomery County. When people ask me what city I live in, I don't name my small town. I, like most people, name the city that I live closest to. Since I'm sorta between Baltimore and the District, I tend to go with the more prominent city, and the one I visit more often. Hence, DC.

[Truman01]

25. I'm glad you set me straight....

I still don't know where you got that I was accusing people of drinking koolaide or for that matter why the flavoraide differentiation makes any difference.

[NuttyFluffers]

35. saying Kleenex for facial tissue is capital crime too.

as is Band-Aid for adhesive bandage.

for shame...

:evilgrin:

seriously, no one should really care. it gets the point across quickly and assuredly. but i guess people do. i was 16 once, and i guess such label issues were pivotal then too. no, wait... no they weren't.
:silly:

[Comicstripper]

38. HA! What an APT metaphor

Oh, wait....no it isn't!
As much as I appreciate your condescending tone (really, it's very mature of you), I have to interject here.

1)What I had said was that I hated the expression because it was wrong and not metaphorically sound.

2)"It's such a popular phrase; ironic that you criticize others for "drinking the Kool-Aide" while you seem to be downing it yourself." (from my original message)
Here, I'm sorry that I didn't make myself clear. What I was trying to say was that I find it ironic that the speaker using the phrase is accusing their subject of conforming to others and accepting common belief, when they themselves are using such a cliche. I didn't mean the poster specifically. Again, I wasn't clear here.

3)Your metaphor also isn't sound. You're arguing that:

"Band Aid": adhesive bandage as "Kool-Aide": "Flavor Aide"
Which is wrong, because Flavor-Aide isn't the generic term, it is a generic brand.

Any other insults you want to throw at someone half your age?

[NuttyFluffers]

39. yes. *yawn*

feel better yet? or still have other inner kvetches torturing you?

[Name removed]

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[rodeodance]

4. hey--who changed my item?

[imenja]

27. that's what I always think of when I see the phrase, Jonestown

[chelsea0011]

5. Didn't Kelsey coin this before Jones

Koolade Acid Test:hippie: :hippie: :hippie: :hippie:

[bemildred]

6. Reverend Jim Jones & The People's Temple

Hours later, the good reverend ordered his followers to drink from a tub of grape-flavored Kool Aid laced with cyanide and tranquilizers. All 908 did. Children died first; babies were killed by poison squirted into their mouths with a syringe. Then the adults. Most were poisoned, some forcibly. Some were shot by security guards. As the ritual suicide progressed, it is unclear whether Jim put a bullet through his brain, or someone did it for him.

http://www.gbs.sha.bw.schule.de/jim_jones_history.htm

[Dr.Phool]

8. Jonestown

But, a better reference was Electric Kool-aid. A batch of Kool-aid and LSD. Much better results.

[bemildred]

9. The Electric KoolAid Acid Test does not have the right connotations.

It was about anything but obedience and conformity,

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Although I know the real answer

you gotta admit the Nixon thing is correct, too, in a metaphorical way.

[0007]

15. No way!

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. Yes, way. In the meaning that so many of the neo-cons are

ideological descendents of Nixon, in his creation of the 'southern strategy', the lineage of Lee Atwater dirty tricks, the rise of the imperial presidency.

The ideological koolaid has never been disowned by the Nixonians. Therefore, the Nixon family owns koolaid.

:evilgrin:

[Osamasux]

12. A coworkers father was their milkman.

We always found that ironic.

[Redleg]

14. The Jim Jones cult Kool Aid assisted suicide in Guyana.

EOM

[Viva_La_Revolution]

16. drug mixed with in the 70's covers it all...

Koolaid Acid test and Jones-town. (LSD and Cyanide). I think as we use the term, it refers to Jones-town, at least that's the connection in my mind... mass suicide and loss of life in exchange for what? some imagined reward in the afterlife? please..
BushCo is destroying the earth in exchange for rewards too, but they plan on collecting some of those rewards along the way..

[noel711]

19. Jim Jones...

a cult leader in Guyana in the '70's, brainwashed his followers (most of which were elderly, homeless, the disenfranchied minorities) into believing that the majority culture were persecuting them. And when the evil ones would come for them, they'd drink arsenic laced kool-aid, prefering obedience to JOnes' "truth" to the alternative.
Of course, the ultimate occured, hundreds of his followers drank the kool-aid and died in the greatest cult disaster. The phrase "drinking the kool-aid" refers to blind obedience to an overwhelming patriarchal figure who demands their ultimate sacrifice.
Seems to be a lot of that throughout history....

[noel711]

20. By the way...

getting high or "trippin'" by drinking LSD laced kool-aid was really not the preferable method. Back in the day, we took our hallucinagins (sp?) straight up: sugar cube, slip of tissue paper, tabs, etc. With the Kool-aid, there might be waste, something leftover, or the infamous, paranoid: "evidence."
Not that I'm trying to influence the younger members of this board.
But truth is what it is... Drinking the kool-aid was not a bad thing back then; it was what you did when you got the munchies and needed to wash down the cheetoes, and you ran out of ripple.

[Catchawave]

22. Definitely Jim Jones and his gang

...rest their poor gullible souls.

[fortyfeetunder]

23. Well how about eating a grilled cheese sammich?

Goes well with the kool aid.

[TankLV]

26. Jim Jones. A typical christian fundy asshole.

Killed a US senator, too plus a TV crew, along with his fundy christian cult followers.

[Lerkfish]

29. an interesting tidbit was that Jim Jones sold monkeys door to door.

That sounds like I made that up, but I vividly remember that in his history.

I remember thinking at the time: hell, anyone who can knock on your door cold and sell you monkey has to be the slickest con man around.

[Guaranteed]

28. I actually believe this phrase means something different than

most do.

I know where it came from, but my interpretation of the correct popular usage of the phrase is in a "giving in to one's own detriment" sense, whereas other people constantly use it in the "believing something stupid" sense.

[Lerkfish]

31. I interpret it as believing the lies you are telling to be true...

in other words, the people making the people drink the koolaid KNEW better but did it anyways themselves. That's a high level of self-coercion.
I think of republicans that way: on some level they HAVE to know Bush is the most dangerous thing to come down the pike, fiscally irresponsible to boot, but they still drink the koolaid anyways, even though they know its poison...and they keep urging others to do so as well.

Its like a coworker who steadfastly denies anyone died under questioning in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, or was abused, even though there is documented evidence and the govt. admits it. Even though there were pictures, he claims all that happened was making prisoners wear panties on their heads. He also refuses to believe any children have been killed in Iraq by american shelling and bombing, even though he has seen the pictures.

This is what I think of by drinking the koolaid: He KNOWS the truth, but continues to lie to HIMSELF about it, and tries to convince others to also live in denial.

I'm really at a loss how you reach a person once they are that far gone?

[Guaranteed]

32. But isn't the key that the Kool-Aid is poisoned?

And those who drank it KNEW that they were killing themselves....were basically giving up.

You know. Screw it. Drink the Kool-Aid.

[Lerkfish]

37. well, good point...but that goes along with what i'm saying..

in that i think, on SOME LEVEL, even the most diehard Bush apologists realize they're apologizing rather than praising.

[Stand and Fight]

30. Simple logical Jones deduction here....

And I'm 26...

[killbotfactory]

33. Yeah, jonestown.

People were so fanatic, they drank the poisoned kool-aid, or as it is referred to in some books a "generic flavored drink". It's referring to abandoning all rational thought in pursuit of an ideology, facts be damned.

[proudbluestater]

34. Jim Jones

[okcdem]

36. Jim Jones

Everyone knows that.