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 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.
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.
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
What the heck is straight-edge even
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.
Somebody who believed the D.A.R.E. officer.
An old fashioned type of razor.
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.
Hey it’s me I’m in this picture
From you link:
While the commonly expressed aspects of the straight edge subculture have been abstinence from alcohol, nicotine, and illegal drugs, there have been considerable variations. Disagreements often arise as to the primary reasons for living straight edge.
Wouldn’t having to justify why you’re making a choice to someone be anti-punk in general? If someone is disagreeing with you for you choosing to be “straight edge” shouldn’t the punk response to them be: “Fuck you”?
Additionally, if someone that is “straight edge” is telling someone else they should also be straight edge, isn’t the response to them also “Fuck you”?
I would agree completely. But you know when kids have discovered politics they are righteous and annoying as fuck for a while until they gain other perspectives and learn to humble down. I know i was one back when the dinosaurs roamed.
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.
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.
I work with three of them. Two fell off the wagon, and the third is one of the nicest people I know.
To quote NOFX:
It’s not the right time to be sober, now the idiots have taken over.
To quote 3Oh!3:
X’s on the back of your hands, wash them in the bathroom to drink like the band
And to think they retired in 2024. 4 decades of no sobriety
To quote Leftover Crack:
And all the boys in the straight-edge scene are in the basement huffing gasoline
God is dead to me!
I was straight edge but as a method to avoid drugs and alcohol as a youth. Around 18 I gave that up as did most of the edge kids I knew. I think out of the ones I still know only one maintains edge.
The movement started in the early 80s by Ian Mackaye from the straight edge band Minor Threat?
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
Sure did. X
Disclaimer: I was never straight-edge then, but was definitely picking up what Minor Threat and Fugazi were putting down.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
Rise Against is still active …
Are they out in search of compasses?
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.
Still some around in the metalcore scene.
