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.

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    7 天前

    I’m not really into punk scenes or anything similar, but I feel like most young people now that would be straight edge are not adopting the aesthetic because they’re more conservative.

  • chunes@lemmy.world
    75·
    9 天前

    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…

  • dumbass@aussie.zoneEnglish
    53·
    9 天前

    To quote NOFX:

    It’s not the right time to be sober, now the idiots have taken over.

    • whaleross@lemmy.world
      462·
      9 天前

      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.

      See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge

      • pdxfed@lemmy.world
        13·
        9 天前

        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.

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
        4·
        9 天前

        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.

    • nanoswarm9k@lemmus.orgEnglish
      6·
      9 天前

      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.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    281·
    9 天前

    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.

    • Norin@lemmy.world
      6·
      8 天前

      Legitimately, the straight edge people I knew in high school are all republicans now.

  • Yeller_king@reddthat.com
    21·
    7 天前

    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.

    • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2·
      8 天前

      I was straight edge when I was in school! I hit 20 and decided to try every drug. It was awesome.

  • blady_blah@lemmy.world
    131·
    7 天前

    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.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
      1·
      7 天前

      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.

    • ace_garp@lemmy.world
      7·
      9 天前

      Sure did. X

      Disclaimer: I was never straight-edge then, but was definitely picking up what Minor Threat and Fugazi were putting down.

    • agit68@lemmy.zip
      2·
      8 天前

      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

      https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=162

  • grumpo_potamus@lemmy.world
    10·
    9 天前

    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.

  • tetris11@lemmy.ml
    10·
    9 天前

    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