In recent years, a number of expressions which find their origin in the Jonestown tragedy have taken root in slang and American urban culture.<\/p>\n
The single word \u201cJonestown\u201d used as slang meaning \u201cfinal ending\u201d appeared in the 2015 Amy Schumer movie Trainwreck<\/em>. As one review<\/a> quoted the line, \u201cThere\u2019s a collection of scenes in the middle of the movie tightly edited to illustrate her character Amy\u2019s falling in love with Aaron (Bill Hader). After a few saccharine sequences, Amy says in voiceover, \u2018I hope this love montage ends like Jonestown.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Like the more familiar phrase \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid,\u201d slang usage of the word \u201cJonestown\u201d \u2013 either upper case or lower case \u2013 has taken on numerous meanings, some of which are described here<\/a>.<\/p>\n A phrase which has gained common parlance in recent years is \u201cdoing a Jonestown.\u201d Among its uses:<\/p>\n In 2002, a discussion group<\/a> on ever-more-potent chile peppers led with a rhetorical question, \u201cSo is food becoming so unpalatable we need to set our tongues on fire first? Are our taste buds doing a Jonestown or what?\u201d<\/p>\n In 2012, an Australian article<\/a> reporting on a no-confidence vote of the head of the Health Service Union quoted her as saying that the union was \u201cdoing a Jonestown\u201d on her.<\/p>\n Laura Johnston Kohl recently reported a person from Latin America as saying that the expression has become the equivalent of \u201cgoing postal,\u201d a phrase with a unique origin in the United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Separate articles on \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid\u201d appear here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In recent years, a number of expressions which find their origin in the Jonestown tragedy have taken root in slang and American urban culture. The single word \u201cJonestown\u201d used as slang meaning \u201cfinal ending\u201d appeared in the 2015 Amy Schumer movie Trainwreck. As one review quoted the line, \u201cThere\u2019s a collection of scenes in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":64830,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-64842","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64842"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134180,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64842\/revisions\/134180"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}