Drink the Kool-Aid

[R. Walker]

Two quick notes on this. For a while I was keeping
track of New Economy backlash examples, and the
implications of "drinking the Kool-Aid" was one.
During the boom years, the connotation was not
necessarily negative (even it seemed like it would
have to be, given the Jim Jones thing). For example,
Jim Clark, explaining how investors flocked to
Netscape's stock after the profitless company's public
offering, once said: "People started drinking my
Kool-Aid." I don't think he meant to suggest that
people were blindly following him to certain disaster
(even if that's kind of what happened).

But by March 2001 the term was definitely a purely
negative one. In a story in the New York Times on the
then-pending IPO of Loudcloud (a project of Clark's
old partner Marc Andreessen), a money manager recalled
having been burned by his investment in Webvan. "I
bought the story," he said. "Fortunately, I realized
very soon after that I'd been drinking Kool-Aid." So
in the post-bubble world, drinking the Kool-Aid, no
matter who's serving it up, is strictly for suckers.

Second: A reader at the time pointed out to me that
Jim Jones actually served a Flav-R-Aid.

http://slate.msn.com/?querytext=Kool+Aid&id=3944&action=fulltext

--- Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET> wrote:
> I've traced the phrase "drink the Kool-Aid" back to
> a Usenet post from 1990.
> For those unfamiliar with it, it means to exhibit
> unswerving devotion to and
> belief in one's leaders.
>
> Does anyone know of earlier uses? Clearly it doesn't
> go back any further
> than 1978, as the inspiration for the phrase is the
> mass suicide of Jim
> Jones's People's Temple in that year.
>
> "So if we're going to do something that is in
> contravention to what is
> prescribed for us, which is basically not unsimilar
> to what happened in
> Jonestown, like 'shut up and drink your
> kool-aid,'--'shut up and read the
> latest editorial in the 'Chronicle' about how the
> nuclear arms race is at
> its end;" dave at ratmandu.csd.sgi.com; Subject:
> Unreliable Sources: Detecting
> Bias in News Media; Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc;
> Date: 1990-08-15
> 11:42:09 PST
>
> "Rush figures the Dems might as well line up and
> drink the Kool-Aid right
> after the nomination; no need to wait until
> November!"
> rovero at oc.nps.navy.mil; Subject: Re: Kool Aid;
> Newsgroups:
> alt.rush-limbaugh; Date: 1992-05-28 12:47:12 PST


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