I was 11 years old in 1978. At that time, “Kool-aid” was used like “Kleenex,” “Band-Aid,” and “Jacuzzi.” You could make a pitcher of “Flavor Aid,” or even powdered Orange Crush, or Kroger brand powdered drink mix, and offer someone “Kool Aid,” and they’d get what they expected.
Both Kool-Aid and Flavor Aid have campaigned in the interim to make people aware of brand vs. product.
Jones used both Kool-Aid and Flavor Aid, probably because he couldn’t get enough of just one or the other at one time, and he didn’t care about the future legacy of the brand name.
“Drank the Kool-Aid” has a resonance that “Drank the Flavor Aid,” just does not have.
Of course, the point is that the narrative today, is that there was no Kool-Aid then, when it was. If that video and testimonials did not exist, I agree with the point that Kool-Aid was used like Kleenex. One can say that popularity overcame manipulation or misguided reporting. But, that does not explain why the meme that is going around (with many reliable sources I may add), is that “It was (just) Flavor-Aid all along.”
That is why I mentioned the cat that is both dead and alive, in this case I do wonder why is that when the evidence is there, that it was not just Falvor-Aid in the Jim Jones compound, the original reporting seems that it looked at Flavor-Aid bags that were open, and preferred to go with that, while videos and some testimonials said that there was Kool-Aid too.
It was the people, in general, who came with “Drink the Kool-Aid” in the context of a cult, while many media sources (Who are keeping the refuted or incomplete meme alive) keep saying that ‘You knucklehead ignorant people, it was just Flavor-Aid!’
Yes, it was both; but since Kool-Aid can stand for Flavor Aid, but not the other way around, I think it is correct, colloquially, to say just “Kool-Aid.”
Me too, what I pointed out is that, currently, among many media sources, the meme goes wrong. Although to be pedantic, the meme among the general public is a bit wrong for not mentioning both.
In any case, since Flavor-Aid has not much of a presence nowadays, I think the “Drink the Kool-Aid” meme rather than the “It was just Flavor-Aid” remains more accurate.
The meme of “Drinking the Kool-aid” has another incorrect aspect over and above what brand of drink was involved. The phrase is used to imply unthinking obedience - but the victims at Jonestown had armed guards enforcing the drinking (and as mentioned above, might have believed that this was yet another harmless dry-run, not the real thing).
France and its reputation for being “cheese eating surrender monkeys”.
It’s based on France’s quick surrender to Germany in 1940 after just a few weeks of active fighting.
But that quick surrender was not typical of French fighting ability. Prior to 1940, the French had a reputation for being a strong military people and they fought prolonged wars without giving up.
IIRC, Medea had multiple feats of cleverness. I mean, yeah, she also had feats of ‘knows magic,’ which is a different kind of braininess — but she also also had feats of cleverness.
During the war, you had Petain and Laval and the Vichy regime working with Germany, even if they didn’t officially join the Axis. There were probably more French people collaborating with the Germans and Italians than there were resisting them.
But you had de Gaulle and the Free French who were also active. And they wanted to present the idea that France was still a major power fighting alongside Britain, America, and Russia against the Axis. So they pushed the idea that everyone in France was working in the resistance. And after 1945, it was in every French person’s best interest to say that they had always supported the side that had now won.
And France was of all the European countries conquered by the Nazis in 39-41 the one that resisted longer. All others were down in 2 or 3 weeks (or even day like Denmark), France needed 6 weeks to fall. And took a sizeable portion of the Luftwaffe down.
Or the canon for Superman or Spiderman; which btw I’m convinced that comic book heroes are the modern version of ancient myths. If the ancient Greeks had only had four-color process printing…
Oh, I often run into people who pick up on a version they like of a myth and claim that’s the one true canon. Mostly among fans of fiction when the myths are being used in a story, which probably has a lot to do with it. Fans can sometimes get very insistent and arbitrary about what is and isn’t canon.
