Were you alive when the Jonestown Mass Suicide happened?

Question

How did it make you feel? We are studying it in Social Psychology.

Answer 1

Yes, I was. I was young, so it was pretty scarry. Later in life I met someone from Guyana and she said oh yes, the country with the mass suicide. I had forgotten about the whole thing and I said oh, right. She was pretty amazed that I wasn't going to question her about it. She said a lot of people did and it was just sick. She hated that her beautiful country was remembered for that horrible horrible time.

Answer 2

Yep.

In college we had the 2nd annual Jim Jones/Jonestown party - complete with Kool-Aid and grain alcohol in a large free standing bathtub.

Next morning the 1st floor of our place was doing a pretty good imitation of Jonestown. Never seen so many people leftover from a party.

Next year we turned the heat all the way up right in the middle of the 2nd semester, and had a 'Day After' party - complete with raggedy-*** clothes and lots of warm Guinness. Everyone had to bring a dish of randy leftovers or a bottle or tube of sun block. Not the easiest thing to come by in February in Boston.

By the end of the night we had most people wearing the sun block and little else.

Good times, good times.

Answer 3

I was surprised by it, and a little sad. I toasted their memory with a Pepsi, though; I didn't have any Lik-M-Aid in the house.

We had a lot of religious wackos in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. When I was in high school, I considered becoming one of them, myself. Wackos seemed to make a lot of money.

I would have thought it more likely of a group led by Victor Paul Weirwille, of New Knoxville, Ohio. Or possibly some of the Grand Rapids crowd that was into Amway. Jim Jones was from Indianapolis, and seemed relatively sane.

Answer 4

Yes.
Very similar to when any mass tragedy occurrs.
Disbelief!
Shock!
How or why can anything so
bizaar so horrific happen to so-called intelligent, modern people?
Then a facsination to know all the details.[ at least for me- I find abnormal psych terribly interesting. One of my jobs deals in the study of the psychopath and sociopath personality.]
But those happenings bring a feeling of disbelief or a feeling of being out of touch with reality to my mind.

Answer 5

I was alive, but I really remember it from the movie.

Mind control is something else. I can't believe people are easy influenced like that. UNBELIEVEABLE.

The same goes for the Branch Davidians and that group from California found dead and waiting to be beamed up into space.

What are people thinking??

Answer 6

Yes.

I was more shocked by the John Wayne Gacy crimes. On the news for days they just kept bringing out more and more bodies/remains. We lived near Chicago at the time, where that took place in a suburb.

Both happened around the same time. The Gacy thing stands out in my memory as being more disturbing.

Answer 7

I was alive. But I am one of those people that dont really feel either way about it because I didnt know anyone involved. Just think people have some twisted sence of reality sometimes.

Answer 8

yes remembered the crazy Reverend Jones that spiked the cool aid and all died at his command to drink , think about 300 people. back in late 70s
in a country in S america next to Surnami

just looked at it like a Waco Whacko.

Answer 9

Yes i was alive then and it made me feel like not trusting any pillar of society as clergy often refer to themselves.However it also made my relationship with God develope more maturely.Good question take care!

Answer 10

Yes and it had no impact on me. A group of people who were total strangers to me committing suicide because one person told them to. Many years later, I view it as one group of hopeless losers less but way too many left to go.