Can someone explain the "kool aid" thing to me?

Question

i always figured it was stupid and made no sense so i never looked it up.....but what does it mean?

Answer 1

google "jim jones" and you will find out.

Answer 2

Once a guy convinced a large following of people that they needed to commit mass suicide and they did it by drinking poison laced Kool-aid. So if you are a follower you are called a kool aid drinker.

Answer 3

It refers to the Jonestown incident when cult leader Jim Jones ordered his followers to drink kool-aid loaded with cyanide. The majority of his followers obediently drank and committed suicide.

Now, anyone that blindly follows someone without considering the consequences to themselves are said to be drinking the kool-aid.  

Answer 4

Try it and you will like it, especially when it's spiked for a rapid journey to nirvana.

Answer 5

It is a metaphor for blindly following a leader, even to your death.

Answer 6

"Drinking the Kool-Aid"

The earliest known use of the term in its figurative, non-literal context (that is, outside descriptions of people actually drinking real Kool-Aid), is from a 1987 quote about former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry in the Washington Post.[3][4]

The term is derived from the 1978 cult suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, persuaded his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year he ordered his followers to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. A camera from inside the compound shows a large chest being opened, clearly showing boxes of both Flavor Aid and Kool-Aid.[5] There is also testimony from criminal investigators at the Jonestown inquest stating that there were "cool aid" [sic] packets there.[6] It is unknown whether these are a reference to the Kool-aid brand packets from the trunk, or simply a generic use of the more popular brand for the product. In what is now commonly called the "Jonestown Massacre", a large majority of the 913 people later found dead drank the brew. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid's relative obscurity, compared to the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.) An earlier usage than 1987 can be attested at least as early as 1982 in the film "The Slumber Party Massacre" by Amy Holden Jones. In the scene where Valerie 'Val' Bates prepares Kool-Aid, she offers a glass to her sister and says "As the famous Jim Jones once said: 'should have been drinking Kool-Aid'".

The saying "Do not drink the Kool-Aid" now commonly refers to the Jonestown tragedy, meaning "Do not trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side," or "Whatever they tell you, do not believe it too strongly."[7] Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly is famous for using the term in this manner.[8]

Having "drunk the Kool-Aid" also refers to being a strong or fervent believer in a particular philosophy or mission — wholeheartedly or blindly believing in its virtues.[9][10]

This expression can also be used to refer to the activities of the Merry Pranksters, a group of people associated with novelist Ken Kesey[citation needed] who, in the early 1960s, traveled around the United States and held events called "Acid Tests", where LSD-laced Kool-Aid was passed out to the public (LSD was legal in the U.S. until 1966). Those who drank the "Kool-Aid" passed the "Acid Test". "Drinking the Kool-Aid" in that context meant accepting the LSD drug culture, and the Pranksters' "turned on" point of view. These events were described in Tom Wolfe's 1968 classic "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". However the expression is never used figuratively in the book, but only literally; therefore, the book is not the origin of the term. [11]

Answer 7

It's what has Obamers brainwashed just like that creepy, evil smirked character has brainwashed people into downing all that sugar.  They're also hooked on HATERADE.

Answer 8

Jonestown.  Basically saying that the Obama folks are cultists and will do whatever he says.  Read up on it here... I'm not a social studies teacher...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown

Answer 9

It's a reference to suicide cultists, and other areas where mass hypnosis is involved. "Drinking the kool-aid" sort of translates to "Believes everything this guy says without question."

Answer 10

Check the link

Answer 11

I would if I had any idea what you are talking about.

A little more detail, maybe?

Answer 12

Religoius cult leader Jim Jones was under attack in Guyana, and fed his followers cyanide-laced grape Kool-Aid, somewhere back in the 70's? Early 80's? He and his wife killed themselves too. It was a major scandal.

Answer 13

well it's kind of a way to describe obama supporters.  basically it means they are so loyal to him it seems as if they have been brain washed via the kool-aid obama hypothetically gives them.  at least that's what i get out of it.  it is pretty funny if you have a sense of humor.

Answer 14

It's a reference to the People's Temple suicide in Guyana in the 1970s.  Jim Jones had followers that believed in him so much they committed suicide by drinking cyanide laced kool-aid.

Answer 15

It's a reference to a cult that did a mass suicide by drinking poisoned juice ( it wasn't actually kool aid, but that's become the popular assumption and is used in the phrase ).

To "drink the kool aid" is to mindlessly accept and do what your leader tells you.

Answer 16

Its'  what's called a "sick joke". 900 people died- many were murdered in Jones town.  

Answer 17

There are two historical references to drinking Kool-Aid, both from the 60's.  Jim Jones was a cult leader who lured his followers to South America, set up a "Jonestown" campsite, and served them Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide.  And the Merry Pranksters used to throw "Electric Kool-Aid" parties where the Kool-Aid was laced with acid (LSD).  These days, "drinking the Kool-Aid" means listening to bloviating dickwads like Pus Limbaugh, Sean Fantasy, Pill O'Lielly, Michael Sewage, or Mann Coulter and believing any word other than "a," "an," or "the."