drink the kool-aid

To completely buy into an idea or system, whether good or bad.

Going along with what a crowd desires. Often used when a person changes positions on a topic.

To make a wholehearted, unconditional commitment (to some group, or idea, or plan) in contrast to choosing an alternative. It emphasizes a resolute decision (good or bad) in response to a choice.

This is a reference to the "electric Kool-Aid acid tests," which were LSD parties held in the San Francisco Bay area in the mid 1960's. Someone who was willing to drink the LSD-laced Kool-Aid had, symbolically, made a choice to join (if only for a few hours) a counterculture that stood against conventional society. Once you take acid, you're committed -- the trip lasts for hours and you can't cut it short or change your mind. Once you've drunk the kool-aid, you're firmly committed.

IMHO it is not about suicide: kool-aid isn't a symbol for poison.

1. (non-pejoratively, uncommon use) To fervently subscribe into a cause or belief with passion and energy.

2. (pejoratively, common use) To heavily buy into a cause or belief that is utterly doomed to failure and disgrace with complete disregard to all reasoning, evidence, and intuitions that clearly indicate such a result. Referring to an inability or unwillingness of someone to be persuaded out of believing obvious nonsense -- even when confronted with the facts -- often times out of a sense of loyalty to a group identity even if there is no reason to do so. Generally implies the complicity of an individual or a group of people in their own deception irregardless of whether or not they realize it.

To blindly follow, or believe something or someone without even questioning the facts. Refusing to agknowledge the real truth. Believed to have connections to the Reverand Jimmy Jones cult that committed mass suicide by drinking kool-aide spiked with poison.

A figure of speech that means to buy into the ideas or beliefs that someone else is selling, be it a company or a church. It strongly suggests that the ideas are nonsense and possibly dangerous. The phrase is a reference to the Jonestown massacre in which the cult leader Jim Jones led his followers to commit mass-suicide by drinking a poisoned fruit drink similar to Kool-Aid.

To blindly follow someone or something.