drinking the koolaid

22Dec07

Lately, I have heard the expression “drinking the koolaid” being said in the same breath as “blogging” or “social media.” In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard this expression being used to describe anything else as much!

The expression started with the tragic cult-mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. After convincing them to move to Guyana, Jim Jones, the leader of the group, ordered his group  followers to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavoured Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. The Jonestown Massacre, as it came to be known, resulted in 913 of the 1100 residents dying after consuming the lethal drink.

From this incident came the expression “don’t drink the Kool-Aid” meaning that you shouldn’t trust any group that seems a little kooky or follow a particular philosophy blindly. The fact that people are using this expression in connection with social media indicates a degree of skepticism. It is true that there is a lot of excitement out there along with some very grandiose ideas about how blogging can change the world. While it’s important to recognize social media’s high potential, it can’t solve every public relations problem or instantly fix an organization’s reputation. The future of social media is still very much in the making.

The key things to keep in mind are that 1. the blogosphere continues to grow at an alarming rate and 2. the PR practitioners simply cannot ignore this phenomenon. It is as difficult to predict the spread of the blogosphere as it was to accurately predict the growth of the internet about 10 years ago. In another 10 years from now, it could very well be that those practitioners who do not participate in social media will be left behind. The point is not so much about the cost of participating in social media now as much as what the cost of not participating will be in the future. Doing that would be drinking the koolaid.

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Tags: blogging, English expressions, future of PR, reputation management