“Can a society take bloated bodies and trailer-loads of shiny corpse containers with its evening meals and be unchanged? How much can one read and hear about the stench of death and grisly mortuary logistics and come out unscathed?”
Charles B. Seib, “What the Media Did,” The Washington Post, December 1, 1978.
In my time researching and learning about Jonestown and Peoples Temple, I’ve noticed an issue in how people talk about survivors and victims of the Temple. Many people across the internet think that they are entitled to give their uncensored opinion on every subject, but when it comes to the Jonestown massacre, these comments often come off as disrespectful, stigmatizing, and overall inappropriate, considering just how monstrous and grotesque the massacre and events within Peoples Temple were. The internet culture notwithstanding, I believe we need to be more considerate and empathetic when we discuss Jonestown, its members, and its repercussions. What we say and share both in real life and online affects real people.
Many of the most striking examples can be found in the r/Jonestown subreddit. I know Reddit is known for being a rather dark forum, but I have also found many academic or subreddits on historical events to be rather informative and calm. I was expecting r/Jonestown to be similar, so was very surprised to find the slew of uninformed and rather hateful comments mixed in with the actual productive conversations on the tragedy and Temple.
Two of the easiest targets of these statements were Carolyn Layton and Annie Moore, two sisters in the Jonestown leadership. What makes them easy targets for personal attacks is that they were undeniably complicit in many horrible things. Even so, I suppose I expected people to be more civil or bring some sort of actual insight rather than just sheer anger at two women. Instead, people had many frankly irrelevant things to say about them, which I’ll paraphrase to protect the commenters’ identity: “Carolyn Layton wasn’t intelligent or that complex”, “Annie Moore’s situation wasn’t sad, the only sad part was that she didn’t put a gun into her head sooner”, and “none of those side skanks [referring to Carolyn Layton] could compete with the beauty of Marceline at her prime”.
(It should be noted that Carolyn and Annie’s only surviving sibling is the co-manager of this website, and has herself received more than her fair share of online abuse.)
I have noticed a pattern that people only want to have perfect victims and perfect abusers, and this especially true on internet forums, when in reality, the world doesn’t work like that. I fail to see how comparing women’s physical attractiveness and undermining the manipulation they experienced helps to honor the “perfect” victims of the massacre.
No one is inherently or completely good, and – more to the point of this essay – no one is completely and irredeemably evil. Everyone has degrees of complexity within them. Hitler had complexity. Jim Jones had complexity. And the women whose desire for social justice and change was exploited by a narcissistic man with a savior complex also had complexity. I do not proclaim innocence for these inner circle members or otherwise accomplices, but simply to dismiss people as being plain evil is unhelpful and often outright untrue.
It’s also dismissive. How does insulting people who died 48 years ago accomplish anything? Holding people accountable – which means being honest about the disgusting things they have done – is one thing, but the inappropriate and personal digs are completely different. If someone doing something bad warrants insensitive discussion about their family, past abuses, and physical traits rather than their actual bad actions, where is the line drawn between who can be disrespected and who can’t?
Moreover, this kind of talk just doesn’t benefit anyone. If someone wanted to get a point across about someone being a bad person or doing heinous things, it would accomplish a lot more to actually discuss their actions. Instead, by attacking their overall character, any positive things they have done are overshadowed or ignored. In turn, so many of these people trying to hold abused and brainwashed women accountable end up reducing them to those same traits instead of actually dissecting their actions and circumstances in a helpful and destigmatizing way.
I’m sure the intention of these comments degrading those who did bad things in order to show support for the fully innocent victims of Nov. 18 and Peoples Temple abuse in general, and I do think these commenters probably come from a place of well-intentioned justice, even if it is expressed as anger. However, there is a disconnect between that intention and the outcome. Instead, we should be making attempts to say and do things that actually and directly support and honor the innocents exploited and abused by the Temple. This roundabout way of supporting the “perfect” victims instead adds to the stigma around the tragedy and therefore all its victims. So if people wanted to actually do something productive to help victims, it shouldn’t be by just slandering those who committed the crimes. How does it help honor the victim of a murder, how does it advance the cause of justice, by saying the murderer was ugly or stupid?
I need to reiterate, I don’t entirely think these commenters say what they do in completely bad faith. I do think they’re inappropriate, but I think a lot of people are understandably angry and, furthermore, accustomed to speaking about Jonestown in that inappropriate way.
I believe a large part of the comfortability and insensitivity regarding Peoples Temple is because of the news reception on the tragedy that continues so much today. I’m very glad to see people talking about how inappropriate the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” is, but that seems to be the tip of the iceberg. Lack of probing news coverage is another key component: most news outlets spent a week covering the grotesque aspects of the tragedy without diving into the history of Peoples Temple, the background of its members, and the many internal and external factors that led up to it… and then they moved on to the next sensation. As a result, people got used to hearing about Peoples Temple in a very ignorant way, and yet, that coverage set the stage for how “Jonestown” is understood today.
I believe we owe the innocent people who lost their lives at the hands of deeply rooted manipulation and exploitation on Nov. 18 better than this. The members of Peoples Temple and those who died in Guyana are not fictional characters nor our personal friends, and we need to treat them as they are: real, human people. I don’t think anyone has the intention of watering victims and survivors’ lives and legacies down to the identity of just “a Kool-Aid cult member”, but when people speak about Peoples Temple and its members in ways devoid of nuance or consideration, the media’s harmful portrayal of the Jonestown massacre is reinforced. It is all of our responsibility to help undo that false perception as to honor the victims of such a complex and horrid tragedy, and we can start by being honest yet civil when we discuss these events.
[Charlie Puterbaugh is a researcher and writer for this website. Her other articles in this edition of the jonestown report include The Post-Defection Affidavits on Tim and Grace Stoen and The Rumor of the Third Gunshot Victim. Her research includes Testimonials of Jim Jones’ Miracles and Healings. Her complete collection of writings and research for this site may be found here.
[Charlie currently attends high school in Illinois, graduating in May 2026. She plans to go to university for Biomedical Engineering. She can be reached at charlieputerbaugh1@gmail.com.]