drink the kool-aid
phrase (informal)


- demonstrate unquestioning obedience or loyalty to someone or something

- to do or accept someone's ideas or suggestions willingly or without asking questions

Oxford Languages, Cambridge DIctionary

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PHRASE ORIGIN

The phrase "drink the Kool-Aid" has a dark and tragic origin. It refers to the events of November 18, 1978, when over 900 members of the Peoples Temple cult led by Jim Jones died in a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. The cult members consumed a flavored drink mix laced with cyanide and other drugs, resulting in their deaths.

Ironically, while the expression uses "Kool-Aid," evidence suggests that the actual drink used was Flavor Aid, a less expensive brand. However, Kool-Aid was better known, and the name became associated with the event in public consciousness.

The phrase began to enter common usage shortly after the tragedy. Initially, it was used literally to refer to the Jonestown deaths, but by the early 1980s, it started to evolve into a metaphor.

By the 1990s and 2000s, the phrase had become commonplace, particularly in business and political contexts, to describe blind loyalty or unquestioning belief in a leader, organization, or ideology. The modern usage often lacks the deadly connotation of the original event, instead simply meaning to adopt beliefs uncritically.

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FROM TRAGEDY TO TREND
When Words Carry the Weight of History

The phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" has traveled from tragedy to casual business jargon, raising important questions about how we use language that references traumatic events.

This linguistic journey isn't unique. English contains other phrases with similarly sensitive backgrounds. For example, “grandfathered in" derives from discriminatory voting laws designed to disenfranchise Black Americans after the Civil War; “sold down the river,” now used to describe betrayal, originally referred to the devastating practice of selling enslaved people to plantations farther south along the Mississippi River, separating families forever; and “going postal,” originally referred to workplace violence among U.S. postal workers in the 1980s and 1990s, and now is used — often inappropriately — to describe someone losing their temper at work.

The transformation of these phrases from their disturbing origins to casual usage mirrors what has happened with "drinking the Kool-Aid." Forbes magazine even named it the "most annoying business cliché of 2012," highlighting how completely it had been incorporated into workplace vernacular, stripped of its tragic context.

Some people consider the casual use of this phrase offensive because it trivializes a horrific tragedy, while others argue that it serves as an important historical reference that helps people remember the dangers of blind obedience. Better to use it with care.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

accept the gospel (blindly), all in, blind acceptance (allegiance, belief, devotion, faith, loyalty, obedience, trust), buy the hype (the narrative, the story, the vision), credulity, credulousness, deep in the fold, DRINK THE KOOL-AID, fall under the spell, follow blindly (the party line), go along without question (in with eyes closed, in headfirst), groupthink, gross credulity, gullibility, join/jump on the bandwagon, join the cult (the flock, the tribe), lambs to the slaughter, leap of faith, no questions asked, sell one’s soul, swallow it whole, surrender reason, suspend disbelief, swallow it "hook, line, and sinker", take it as gospel, take on faith, toe the (company) line, true believer, unquestioning belief (loyalty), walk in lockstep, wishful belief

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:

"They’re DRINKING THE KOOL-AID, but no one’s asking where the data came from.”

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THANKS to Florian for suggesting today's OWAD.

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P L E A S E   S U P P O R T   O W A D

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