{"id":92881,"date":"2019-09-23T13:46:10","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T20:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=92881"},"modified":"2026-03-01T14:35:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T22:35:52","slug":"drinking-the-kool-aid-2019","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=92881","title":{"rendered":"Drinking the Kool-Aid, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Editor’s note<\/strong>: <\/em>the jonestown report made note every year in its 13 editions between 2007 and 2019 of the numerous articles, op-ed pieces, and commentaries that specifically mention the use of the phrase, even if it isn\u2019t the focus of the entire piece. Even though the report suspended the annual listing beginning in 2020, the references continue on a near daily basis in online media sources.<\/em><\/p>\n

(The listing below includes several references from 2019. The entries include the source and nature of the references. Even as the URLs themselves often go defunct, we will continue to note the outdated links.)<\/em><\/p>\n

The expression \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid\u201d is now deeply embedded into American slang \u2013 often as throwaway and\/or commonly-understood lines in sports, business, and popular culture \u2013 with upwards of a dozen references appearing on news feeds every day. Especially in political arena, the saying has become increasingly weaponized, as partisans on all sides use it to disparage the intellectual capacity and discernment of their opponents.<\/p>\n

There have been several serious considerations of the phrase during the months in the wake of the fortieth anniversary of the Jonestown deaths in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The phrase was listed as one of the \u201ccommon business expressions that have become a little too common\u201d in the article, \u201cThinking outside the box \u2014 and other annoying business clich\u00e9s,\u201d<\/a>which appeared in the February 2, 2019 edition of The Watertown (SD) Opinion<\/em>. \u201cIn business it means to be wary of peer pressure associated with what appear to be risky ideas\u2026hopefully not as risky as the Jamestown [Jonestown] Kool-Aid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Similarly, the phrase was listed among the 50 most overused business clich\u00e9s in the July 26, 2019 edition of TechRepublic<\/a>, but it was one of the few flagged for special attention: \u201cWhatever you do, do not ask your colleagues to drink the Kool-Aid. This is a mostly forgotten reference to the tragic 1978 Jonestown suicides. If you want people to support your ideas, ask for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 A May 17, 2019 column in The Sand Mountain Reporter<\/a> by Chip Warren, the past president of the Ministerial Fellowship in Albertville, Alabama, describes a religious warning in the phrase. <\/p>\n

We all say that we could never be so easily duped into following someone so blindly that we would do anything they asked of us.\u2026 [I]f we want to learn to spot counterfeit teachers who try to get us \u2018to drink the Kool-Aid,\u2019 then we need to be so familiar with the Word of God and sound doctrine that we can recognize them and their teachings as false and deceiving.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022 Another commentary on the phrase itself appeared as a column World O\u2019 Words: From an horrific event evolves a trivial phrase<\/a> by Barry Coulter, May 8, 2019, Cranbrook Daily Townsman<\/em>, British Columbia, Canada.<\/p>\n

Other uses of note:<\/strong><\/p>\n

An art exhibition of a series on Product Recall by Maryam Jafri entitled I Drank the Kool-Aid But I Didn’t Inhale<\/em>was shown at the Institute of Contemporary art in Los Angeles from February 10 through June 23, 2019. As the article from the museum<\/a> described the show, \u201cThe work, as is characteristic of Jafri’s practice, invites the audience to consider the hidden significance\u2014and meanings\u2014of archival materials.\u201d The artist herself noted that the title wouldn\u2019t work outside of the United States, since it \u201creferences Bill Clinton’s admission to (not fully) smoking marijuana when asked if he had ever broken an international law.\u201d The first half of the title is \u201ca U.S. colloquialism. Not everybody is going to get it. I think there’s a subtle layer. The work translates very well and it travels very well, but within a specific U.S. context, it is more an immediate knowledge.\u201d She does not give the origin of that phrase, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Editor’s note: the jonestown report made note every year in its 13 editions between 2007 and 2019 of the numerous articles, op-ed pieces, and commentaries that specifically mention the use of the phrase, even if it isn\u2019t the focus of the entire piece. Even though the report suspended the annual listing beginning in 2020, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":92869,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-92881","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/92881","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=92881"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/92881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134470,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/92881\/revisions\/134470"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/92869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}