Online Excerpts About & Examples Of The Phrase "Drink The Kool-Aid"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides information and examples of the vernacular phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid".

The content of this post is presented for cultural and linguistic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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WHAT "DRINKING THE KOOL-AID" MEANS IN VERNACULAR AMERICAN ENGLISH
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid
..."In recent years ["drinking the Kool-Aid"] has evolved further to mean extreme dedication to a cause or purpose, so extreme that one would "drink the Kool-Aid" and die for the cause.

..."In recent years ["drinking the Kool-Aid"] has evolved further to mean extreme dedication to a cause or purpose, so extreme that one would "drink the Kool-Aid" and die for the cause.

The phrase originates from events in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978, in which over 900 members of the Peoples Temple movement died. The movement's leader,  Jim Jones , called a mass meeting at the Jonestown pavilion after the murder of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and others in nearby Port Kaituma. Jones proposed "revolutionary suicide" by way of ingesting a powdered drink mix lethally laced with cyanide and other drugs which had been prepared by his aides.

Background

On November 18, 1978, Jones ordered that the members of Representative Leo Ryan's party be killed after several defectors chose to leave with the party. Residents of the commune later committed suicide by drinking a flavored beverage laced with potassium cyanide; some were forced to drink it, some (such as small children) drank it unknowingly.^[3] Roughly 918 people died.

Descriptions of the event often refer to the beverage not as Kool-Aid but as Flavor Aid,^[4] a less-expensive product reportedly found at the site.^[5] Kraft Foods, the maker of Kool-Aid, has stated the same.^[6] Implied by this accounting of events is that the reference to the Kool-Aid brand owes exclusively to its being better-known among Americans... Criminal investigators testifying at the Jonestown inquest spoke of finding packets of "cool aid" (sic), and eyewitnesses to the incident are also recorded as speaking of "cool aid" or "Cool Aid."^[7] It is unclear whether they intended to refer to the actual Kool-Aid–brand drink or were using the name in a generic sense that might refer to any powdered flavored beverage."...

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Excerpt #2
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=drink%20the%20kool-aid
"drink the kool-aid
A reference to the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called "the Jonestown Massacre", 913 of the 1100 Jonestown residents drank the Kool-Aid and died.

One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t  drink the Kool-Aid" This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side" or "Whatever they tell you, don't believe it too strongly".

The phrase can also be used in the opposite sense to indicate that one has embraced a particular philosophy or perspective.

Alice: Hey, did you hear that Joe is working on the Nader campaign?
Bob: Yeah, he really drank the Kool-Aid on that one.

Chris: I'm thinking about attending a PETA rally
Donna: Whatever you do, don't drink the Kool-Aid!

by Nugget, April 14, 2005

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Excerpt #3

From https://grammarist.com/usage/drink-the-kool-aid/
Drink The Kool-Aid

"To drink the Kool-Aid is to become a firm believer in something or a passionate follower of a philosophy or movement. The expression is usually pejorative, implying that the Kool-Aid drinker is blindly following something that doesn’t merit such devotion. It also may suggest the drinker has forgone individuality and slipped into groupthink. But it is occasionally used positively.

The expression is a reference to the 1978 event at Jonestown, Guyana, where hundreds of members of the Peoples Temple, a Californian cult, committed suicide by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.¹ (Actually, they drank a different brand of sugary, fruit-flavored drink, but we call it Kool-Aid anyway.) So the metaphor isn’t strictly logical as it’s used today. We use it as if the members of the Peoples Temple drank Kool-Aid when joining the cult, when in fact the phrase logically should mean something like to participate in mass self-sacrifice at the behest of a leader.

The phrase has had its current sense since at least the late 1990s,² and historical Google searches show its use has been steady since that time. Today it is as prevalent as ever. A Google News search covering the first three months of 2012 reveals 179 instances of the phrase (and this doesn’t count variations that are difficult to search for).

Drink the Kool-Aid seems to fill a gap in the language, and many people find it useful. It’s so common it has become a cliche, though, and it probably won’t age well as its referent grows more distant.

Examples

Well, a party chief is supposed to drink the Kool-Aid – and urge others to drink it. [New York Daily News (2002)]

To their everlasting credit, no one on the Patriots has even sipped the Kool-aid this week when it comes to the media’s dynasty fascination. [Sports Illustrated (2004)]

If you’re like most of the public, you’ve swallowed the Kool-Aid that the existing energy regime is giving you. [Energy and Capital (2007)]

But in the UK, the Times showed yesterday morning that it too has now drunk the Kool-Aid over the Middle East. [Daily Mail (2011)]

Then of course the crash ensued and all of us who drank the Kool-Aid got burned. [International Business Times (2012)]

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Pancocojams Editor's Note
Read https://www.history.com/news/jonestown-jim-jones-mass-murder-suicide to correct the widely held erroneous view that all of Jim Jones' followers willingly drank poisonous "Kool-Aid" and willingly gave it to their children.Instead "Jim Jones used armed guards and threats for force many of those 'suicides'":,

****A RECENT POLITICAL EXAMPLE OF THE "DRINKING THE KOOL-AID" PHRASE   

From https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Jim+Acosta%22 The following example is from that trending twitter account which quotes an exchange between CNN television journalist and political commentator Anderson Cooper and American journalist and the chief White House correspondent for CNN Jim Acosta. This televised segment occurred after President Trump held a "press conference" in the White House Rose Garden on July 14, 2020.
"Anderson : "Is there ANYONE around POTUS that shakes their head when Trump rambles and rambles like this?" Jim Acosta: "No, Anderson. The White House staff is now down to just Kool-Aid drinkers and next of kin" ** Omar Moore

@thepopcornreel

“Ah, no Anderson, we are down to Kool-Aid drinkers and next of kin here at the Trump White House. There are no more adults who will level with the president.” -Jim Acosta" **** Thanks for visiting pancocojams. Visitor comments are welcome.