Felt like they were on the rage as I was finishing high school, but now they’re nowhere to be seen.
I’d wager most of you haven’t even heard the term ‘straight-edge’ in months, or possibly years.
I knew two straight edge kids in highschool. They both died of overdoses shortly after highschool.
I mean they may not know what straight edge means, but there are a shit-ton of people who don’t do drugs or alcohol…
I don’t do either but I don’t call myself straight edge because everyone I knew who did was an asshole.
To quote NOFX:
It’s not the right time to be sober, now the idiots have taken over.
And to think they retired in 2024. 4 decades of no sobriety
To quote 3Oh!3:
X’s on the back of your hands, wash them in the bathroom to drink like the band
To quote Leftover Crack:
And all the boys in the straight-edge scene are in the basement huffing gasoline
God is dead to me!
What the heck is straight-edge even
People that listen to hardcore that abstain from drugs and alcohol and commonly also from eating meat. They were easily recognizable by having painted a large sXe with a marker on their hand and maybe some additional letters on top and bottom for their particular flavour of Straight Edge. Here in Sweden they were quite common amongst punk rockers from the mid eighties up to late nineties.
Thank you for the link. I’d heard of “straight laced” but never straight edged: punk was a bit before my time and I was out off by the general punk aesthetics when I was younger, only to realize I would have gotten on famously with punks over politics and many other things.
Having read the wiki, it sounded reasonable until it got to no caffeine, hard stop.
That’s wild. I lived there during that timeframe and I have never seen the tattoo, neither even heard of those metalheads.
Maybe it was a regional thing? I mean in Sweden.
It was an international thing but there was a very big sXe scene in Umeå. If you’re into 1990s punk and hardcore you may be familiar with Refused.
Södra Sverige och metal 🎶 vilket kanske förklarar det.
Jag växte upp i Stockholm och där var det straight edgare på konserter.
Sunkiga Växjö här 😥
Hey it’s me I’m in this picture
Somebody who believed the D.A.R.E. officer.
An old fashioned type of razor.
Also,
Folks who put the bar “no alcohol” (common at 18+ or family shows) permenant marker X’s across their own hand-back; punk and adjacent subcultures
Some folks were on the wagon. Some folks wanted to not become their parents too quick. Some folks were young and new to everything else, and felt not ready for drugs yet. Some were physically or ideologicaly sensitive.
Some still are, from the little popups.
Considering all the straight edge people I know seemed more into it to hate drugs and drug users more than about keeping a “straight edge”, they probably got absorbed into the manosphere somewhere.
Legitimately, the straight edge people I knew in high school are all republicans now.
Because as an adult, you can simply choose whether to use drugs/alcohol and it’s not a big part of your identity like it was as a teen.
I used to be straight edge (or queer edge?), but gave up a few years ago. I need my vices just so I don’t feel dead inside 24/7.
I was straight edge when I was in school! I hit 20 and decided to try every drug. It was awesome.
So does straight edge strictly refer to not doing drugs? If that’s the definition, then I’m a straight edged person… Hell, I don’t even drink and I work for a Scottish company where all my co-workers drink like fish.
I’m not religious, it has just always seemed dumb to me that people felt they needed to be inebriated to have a good time. Maybe this is just the normal for them so they don’t know any different? But doesn’t that seem pretty stupid? Anyways, I was stubborn in college and resisted peer pressure and by the time I didn’t care anymore, I just never saw the need to start drinking (or doing drugs). But I’m not here preach, I don’t really care what you do as long as it doesn’t affect me (i.e. drunk driving).
I’m a CTO for a midsized company. I have three kids and I’ve been happily married for over 25 years. Between my friends, there are more people who don’t drink than those who do, but at work I’m definitely the oddball… But I’m also old enough that I don’t really give a shit what other people think so I’m perfectly happy going along and being the guy who doesn’t drink.
No that’s not straight edge, you have to be sober but also still part of the punk/hardcore subcultures where you’d be expected to partake.
Ah, ok, then that’s not me.
The movement started in the early 80s by Ian Mackaye from the straight edge band Minor Threat?
Sure did. X
Disclaimer: I was never straight-edge then, but was definitely picking up what Minor Threat and Fugazi were putting down.
Ian has always had the position it was a personal choice. Not some dogmatic bullshit. They were just kids who wanted to get into shows.
The song straight edge was just his personal opinion. Bands like SSD (Society System Decontrol) took it a little further. And then the NYHC scene in the mid to late 80’s took it even further. That’s how you ended up with Earth Crisis and victory records in the 90’s.
He doesn’t really like being tied to the straight edge movement.
The documentary “Salad Days” has a great interview with him about it
He also has a good interview in this book:
Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics
Imma be honest, the only time I ever heard straight-edge was in a song
I knew a few straight edge people in the punk scene that were also super Christian. Back in the early 2000s. One of them was in a band that had songs on an Xbox snowboarding game I really liked his music but he ditched the band to be a worship leader.
SSX Tricky
I think it was amped
The 3 straight edge kids I knew all became public school teachers
My Sociology teacher in highschool was straight edge.
The said it was the straight edges or the crust punks and he was uncomfy in itchy clothes.
We found out acid is all fun no downside
Apart from the awkward social encounters with normies.
Fuck em, they suck.
Shrooms are even better!
Eh, I don’t care for the taste or chance of getting them mixed up with very, very unfun mushrooms but it’s the same idea in the end.
I prefer the come down of shrooms myself. Plus the communing with nature lol. Acid is a lot of fun too mind you :)
Wait till you hear of Syd Barrett.
Uh huh, I know what the kinds of people who believe in reefer madness think of a guy who definitely did more and had more mental trauma going on than LSD.
I also know he died at 60 of pancreatic cancer and not an OD.
I’m still here!
HxH username? (If not, ignore me, if so, nice!)
Nah, it’s just my name! I am a big fan of HxH, though, and used to have a Gon Freecss profile picture for the longest time.
Okay but why, acid is basically risk free
Except if you have unmanaged blood pressure problems I think but it helps manage it as long as a dose won’t pop your skull off
Some people don’t want to try it. I love acid, and I think a lot of people could use it, but for some people it doesn’t sound like something they’re interested in so no harm done by them not doing it.
Why would I take acid, though? Do you live your life on why-nots?!
I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink coffee and avoid caffeine in general… Why would I do fucking acid? Plus, surely that’s expensive, no? I’ve never actually encountered any acid IRL so I’ve no idea how hard it might be to find, would I to look.
Oh, you’re scared of trying new things that might get you in trouble, that’s fair, police states and whatnot
I’m not sure what you mean LOL
Not sure how you got that idea from what I wrote, but drugs are actually legal to buy and consume where I live. Doing acid wouldn’t get me in trouble with the authorities! Well, unless I had a really bad trip and did illegal things, I guess, but I doubt that’s likely.
Still here some 30+ years later. For a lot of people it was a passing phase and there was a lot of tough-guy bullshit that I think many people who felt marginalized bought into. But not everyone…
I read an interview one time (I think with one of the guys from Snapcase) that SE is just the beginning. If all you did was apply that label to yourself but not use that as a stepping stone for anything else in your life, then what good was it. That resonated with me a lot.
I don’t really go around advertising SE because I’m a middle-aged dude at work or at his kid’s volleyball game and I don’t really define myself by one label or lifestyle choice anymore. Being punk/alt/whatever at almost 50 looks different than it did at ages 16-22.
I’m grateful for the HC/punk family I grew up with and the memories of that scene I have and that I was able to avoid some of the pitfalls around me in my younger days.
Briefcases. Once briefcases no longer became practical, laptop satchels had a moment, but then the straight-edged kids realised that backpack was just superior in every way, so they begun to one-strap it out of convenience, and once you carry a backpack with one strap, that’s a slippery slope to being chill
