Drinking the KoolAid - WTF?

[dreamshark]

In the last couple of years I've been encountering this phrase more and more often. I'm baffled by it. I just heard it again on the radio: somebody talking about having mistakenly expected a particular sports team to win and described himself as "... drinkin' the green KoolAid." I THINK he meant that he had been deluding himself (I don't know why the KoolAid was green, however. Is green the Celtics team color?). I've heard it in business speak a number of times. "We've been drinking our own KoolAid" or "We want them (our customers) to keep drinkin' our KoolAid."

Does anybody know what this means? I can think of two vivid historical references for KoolAid, but in one case the KoolAid was laced with poison for a mass suicide, and in the other case it was spiked with LSD to make the bus trip more fun. And both of these things happened decades ago - why is the KoolAid terminology popping up now? Did somebody just write a book featuring KoolAid as a brainwashing tool or something?

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I think it's the Jonestown reference. It's clearly spreading out from there, but for years I've heard people describe other people believing crazy positions (you know, Republicans and such) described as "having drunk the coolaid". That's *clearly* the Jonestown reference -- drinking the coolaid is NOT a good thing.

The references to customers seem to me to be product of miscegenation between this phrase and "eating your own dogfood" (meaning that a company should use its own products when applicable).

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

But the Jones Cult Koolaid was POISON. It didn't make them believe crazy stuff, it made them dead! This can't be a good thing to wish that your customers would do: commit mass suicide?

Ken Kesey's KoolAid, on the other hand, was full of LSD, so it comes closer to the apparent meaning of the phrase. Anyway, it might be if hallucinogens made you believe that your sports team would always win or that you should buy more networking equipment. Which isn't exactly the effect it had on the Merry Pranksters, if I remember correctly.

It must be a conflation in the popular imagination between the two: Jim Jones+Electric KoolAid = Cult.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

But the Jones Cult Koolaid was POISON.

...and they knew it was poison, and they gave it to their children. After their children were dead, they drank it themselves.

It is an act of self-sacrifice to prove belief, despite and obvious and inevitable failure.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

No, it didn't *make* them believe crazy things; it was the clear sign that they *already did* believe crazy things. That's why it works so well in the colloquial usage meaning that.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

But who wants their customers committing mass suicide? And... "drinking our own KoolAid?" If we'd been doing that, then there wouldn't be anybody in the meeting to hear the dopey marketing guy make the comment.

If that is indeed the reference, I think most of the people using it don't really know what it refers to. Like people who use the line "Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, associates only with other ducks" without realizing they are quoting Senator Joe McCarthy.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

It is a reference to the Jim Jones Cult that committed mass suicide by drinking Grape Flavor-Aid. The Grape Flavor-Aid has commonly been misrepresented in American pop-culture as Lime Kool-Aid.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

You are correct. I remember that news reports following the Jonestown mass suicide erroneously referred to the drink as (specifically) grape Kool-Aid. The pop culture shift of the reference to lime may have been some sort of crossover from the tradition that lime Jell-O is the silliest flavor, which tradition itself originates in fandom.

[laurel]

I've heard the reference for years and years and always took it as referring to Jonestown. People believing crazy things are "drinking the Kool-Aid". I've usually heard it without reference to color or flavor of Kool-Aid, but I can see how people might add that sometimes.

And yeah, the Celtics wear green, so drinking green Kool-Aid by believing in the Celtics (especially when it's somewhat crazy to do so) would make sense.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

As funk went out of style, being replaced by rap, erstwhile hit-making musicians found themselves in need of a charity concert, dubbed KoolAid. KoolAid I was successful, but KoolAid II, hosted by Kermit the Frog, was not. Backers lost their money. "Drinking the green KoolAid" means to jump on a bandwagon prematurely and disastrously.

At least, that's how Miss Piggy tells it.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

'Cuz everybody knows she was always trying to jump Kermit prematurely.... ;)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I can't believe that I am saying this to you, but: you're being too literal.

Back up a step. Stop at the part where they put such total trust in what the powers-that-be told them that they unprotestingly drank something tasty, even though at least some of them knew it had bad effects.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I can't believe that I am saying this to you, but: you're being too literal.

*heh*

Okay, I guess I'm convinced that when people use this phrase they are referring to Jonestown, possibly in some vague half-remembered way. I still think it is a stupefyingly bad analogy, but that wasn't exactly my question.