The internet is filled with things. Here is one of them.
It was Fla•Vor•Aid, actually2025 Apr 28
When someone's going down the path towards embracing a crazy cult-like thinking, we say that they're "drinking the Kool-Aid". We've likely forgotten the source of this phrase's popularity, but it soared in usage after being tastelessly (lol) tied to the 1978 Jonestown Massacre. The infamy stems from cult leader Jim Jones supposedly having several hundred of his blindly-believing followers (predominantly African Americans, who had by this point followed him to a colony in Guyana) join him in death by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid.
Except two important things about that story are not true. First, reports are that while some people did voluntarily drink the poison, many other people "voluntarily" did so at gun-point, and many others were injected against their will. Murder. We call that murder. And second, it wasn't Kool-Aid, it was Fla-Vor-Aid. Get your story straight, people! And it should be noted Jones himself didn't drink the Fla-Vor-Aid – he shot himself.
But why Kool-Aid? Besides the obvious, I mean, that Kool-Aid is awesome and nobody knows wtf Fla-Vor-Aid is. Blame Tom Wolfe's reporting about Ken Kesey for that. Kesey, ten years prior to Jim Jones' thing, was handing out LSD-laced Kool-Aid at "Acid Test" parties (the real Kool-Aid this time, knock-offs being insufficient for those transcending reality) which killed absolutely nobody, even if Kesey was kinda cult leader-ish at the time.
When someone's going down the path towards embracing a crazy cult-like thinking, we say that they're "drinking the Kool-Aid". We've likely forgotten the source of this phrase's popularity, but it soared in usage after being tastelessly (lol) tied to the 1978 Jonestown Massacre. The infamy stems from cult leader Jim Jones supposedly having several hundred of his blindly-believing followers (predominantly African Americans, who had by this point followed him to a colony in Guyana) join him in death by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid.
Except two important things about that story are not true. First, reports are that while some people did voluntarily drink the poison, many other people "voluntarily" did so at gun-point, and many others were injected against their will. Murder. We call that murder. And second, it wasn't Kool-Aid, it was Fla-Vor-Aid. Get your story straight, people! And it should be noted Jones himself didn't drink the Fla-Vor-Aid – he shot himself.
But why Kool-Aid? Besides the obvious, I mean, that Kool-Aid is awesome and nobody knows wtf Fla-Vor-Aid is. Blame Tom Wolfe's reporting about Ken Kesey for that. Kesey, ten years prior to Jim Jones' thing, was handing out LSD-laced Kool-Aid at "Acid Test" parties (the real Kool-Aid this time, knock-offs being insufficient for those transcending reality) which killed absolutely nobody, even if Kesey was kinda cult leader-ish at the time.
So remember: Kool-Aid = fun, Fla-Vor-Aid = death.