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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Kool-Aid</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../K.html" title="K"/><link rel="previous" href="kook.html" title="kook"/><link rel="next" href="kremvax.html" title="kremvax"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Kool-Aid</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="kook.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">K</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="kremvax.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Kool-Aid"/><dt xmlns="" id="Kool-Aid"><b>Kool-Aid</b></dt></dt><dd><p> [from a kid's sugar-enriched drink in fruity flavors] When someone
who should know better succumbs to marketing influences and actually begins
to believe the propaganda being dished out by a vendor, they are said to
have drunk the Kool-Aid. Usually the decortication process is slow and
almost unnoticeable until one day the victim emerges as a True Believer and
begins spreading the faith himself. The term originates in the suicide of
914 followers of Jim Jones's People's Temple cult in Guyana in 1978 (there
are also resonances with Ken Kesey's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests from the
1960s). What the Jonestown victims actually drank was cyanide-laced
Flavor-Aid, a cheap knockoff, rather than Kool-Aid itself. There is a
<a href="http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/food/kool-aid-faq.html" target="_top">
FAQ</a> on this topic.</p><p>This has live variants. When a suit is blithering on about their
latest technology and how it will save the world, that's &#8216;pouring
Kool-Aid&#8217;. When the suit does not violate the laws of physics,
doesn't make impossible claims, and in fact says something reasonable and
believable, that's pouring good Kool-Aid, usually used in the sentence
&#8220;<span class="quote">He pours good Kool-Aid, doesn't he?</span>&#8221; This connotes that the
speaker might be about to drink same.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="kook.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../K.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="kremvax.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">kook </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> kremvax</td></tr></table></div></body></html>