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what do you think about straight edge people?

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xstayfadedx

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Jan 7, 2011
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I was watching a documentary again I saw awhile ago which just happened to be on television again. Why did I not catch the name again? Eh, I will google it when I can. However if you don't know what straight edge is here's a definition:

Straight edge is a subculture and subgenre of
hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from
using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational
drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual
revolution, hedonism, and excess associated
with punk rock.

I've been to many hardcore shows and there are many straight edge kids or adults... I mean I'm there for the music but some bands are more generated to the no drug use crowd ect... Like Have Heart (a band I use to love) and the list goes on. Sometimes I just see the few kids who go they can party without drugs blah blah but then you also have the people who are straight edge down to the core. Like they don't mess around and this is their life... Its almost like a gang.

Anyways I'd like to hear your opinions on straight edge people and whether or not you associate with any. Don't get me wrong I have some straight edge friends but some I can't be around. Its as if everything you do is wrong.... "Don't touch that drink or those drugs, wow you're such a scumbag for doing so."
 
I am like a Jehoviah's Witness. They are just a potential druggy I haven't converted yet.
 
I think it was the governments (or someones) plan to create a subculture that would appear cool and hip to teens to keep them off drugs.

I think it was one of their more successful attempts.

I would associate with someone regardless of if they were straight edge or not straight edge or undetermined. It really wouldn't matter. I do think that a rule of straight edge is to not associate with the damaged such as myself though so I'm not so sure they'd hang with me :p.
 
I think nothing of them, undoubtedly i would have a hard time being friends with one of them but then again i am yet to meet one....
 
I highly doubt that the government created straight edge culture. In fact, the "creator" of this is Ian McKaye of Minor Threat/ Fugazi/ Dischord Records acclaim, and has stated in numerous intervies that he did not intend his songs to start a subculture, especially one inclined towards exclusivity and violence towards others.

I have known some cool edgers in my days when I was a kid and heavily into the punk rock scene. On the other hand, straight edge gangs in California and Utah have, in the past, taken to vigilante justice against drug dealers.

I got kicked out of an Evens (Ian McKaye's shitty new band) show at a Hare Krishna center for being reeking drunk and nodding off/ almost dead, and expressed my displeasure by throwing an unopened 24oz malt liquor can directly at the dudes head. True story.
 
hah, i for sure how have some straight edge friends, however they are respectful. As i am to them too. its about respect really. i respect what anyone does. I knew some straight edge kids in highschool that were that way, and would make fun of everyone that did drugs/drink alcohol. Then when they graduated they were alll about the alcohol and drug use.
But anyways, i dont mind straight edge people i respect them if they respect me kind of deal. It just pisses me off that the ones who were straight edge who talked shit. Are all about it now -_-
 
I've had a few straight edge friends. To me, it's whatever. If you respect me, I'll respect you. It's as simple as that...

...But, there are some SXE kids that piss me off. The ones that are militant about it, piss me off. I mean, these are the kids that will beat up/jump people at shows for simply drinking a beer, or smoking a cigarette outside of the venue. FUCK those kids. I've been to a couple hardcore shows, where they didn't even have the bar open, and they had it covered because SXE kids destroyed all of the liquor and shit behind the bar, like seriously? Fuck those kids, man.
 
They're like the dinosaurs -- I see the proof they exist from fossils and such, but in the end, I've never seen a real live one so I can't exactly wrap my brain around it.

White trash pass time alert: Also there's this WWE wrestler named CM Punk aka Phil Brooks who is straight edge in a business known for rampant drug use and most former wrestlers not living to see 50 years old. I don't know how he does it, but his body takes a beating and he just ices it up and goes on his merry way. I think he drinks Pepsi, which has caffeine, although he's not fucking Mormon or anything so he still counts as straight edge, haha.
 
Even before I ever touched drugs, I disliked XstraightedgeX people. Who are they to pry in to the personal lives of others, to judge them for what they do for fun? As long as people aren't negatively affecting the lives of others with their actions, they should be free to do whatever they want with the lives.

There was a quote that blew me the fuck away when I was reading the school-required Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, when Amir asks his father why he drinks alcohol despite the Quran and religious figures disallowing it:

Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness... There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir.
Click to expand...

If one is responsible with their drug usage, and doesn't fuck other people over, use them, or steal from them in order to get money for their next fix, then where is the harm? We should be living in a modern enough time that people, regardless of their personal stance on substance abuse, should not tell others how to live their lives.

As far as regular straight people, I feel like I have an advantage over them. I've seen the world in a different light, my perspective on life and the world around us has been changed due to psychedelic drugs and cannabis, and they will be forever missing out on the beauty that is explorative mind alteration.
 
Whatever, man. SXE kids are alright as long as they don't get all preachy about it when you tell them you don't wanna hear it.

Hardcore kids in general have to watch themselves in the pit. Fucking windmilling your fists and whatever else shit I've seen some of you guys pull off in there will just get you a beating.
 
In my experience these people don't last past age 16, that being said:

I'd support the right of anyone to whatever they like to/for themselves the pursuit of happiness that doesn't negatively affect at least one other individual without their consent.

Just keep it out of my backyard. I treat these people like I treat the mentally ill. I'll listen to their insane gibberish for a small while say they sit next to me at a bar or other popular social setting, but after awhile I'll have to be firm and give them the patronizing "ok" and make my exit.

My general assessment of this behavior is it is some breed of watered down, half-assed modern day urban/suburban Western Asceticism, although if these people were HALFWAY serious they'd abandon television, refined Salt/Sugar/Fat, meat/animal products, sex, electricity, shelter etc. and so forth.
 
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My daughter was dating a kid who turned straightedge. He was a rather weak minded kid & I think the SXE movement made him feel empowered. He was really pushy & would sometimes give me a hard time. Eventually they broke up cuz he has turned into such an asshole.

Hey, if you want to stay straight, that's your own thing and that's fine with me. Just don't get all preachy & try to force your views on others like the crazy evangelicals do.
 
I've got a lot to say about this, seeing as I was pretty straight edge for a while.

I'll write more later, but we're on our way to cop and I'm on my phone lol but I will say this...

I respect their feelings and I can understand where they're coming from, but at the same time, the drug game has opened me up to such new people and new experiences and I feel more worldly and empathetic now. I'd hate to have missed out on all that.

I'll explain more later lol
 
I sadly have to admit I was also once straight edge.... Urmm... Yeah I didn't want to but before I got into drugs and shit I was so against alcohol, cigarettes and illegal substances. I always would go to the hardcore shows ect and I met kids who I chilled with. Then I got involved with them. Yup, you see where I ended up. I was a naïve kid though and didn't really know the truth about the drug scene. That was up until I was 14 though... Then when I turned 15 and shit it went all downhill or maybe uphill? I don't regret doing my own shit. I did have to get rid of some hoodies though.... LOL the ones with xxx.

Haha I'm surprised you guys never ran into sXe kids. Shit I know many even before I was straight edge. I still have friends who are but we were friends before I was, when I was and after I was... Some of them are cool as hell and I respect them. Its just you know what they stand for and they know what you stand for... You don't disrespect them for that. They're just like anyone else they just figured out a way to be happy without substances.
 
Their body, their choice. I relate well to people who don't do drugs. Our life philosophies can mesh, we just obtained our knowledge/wisdom/experience from different sources, is all. Once you realize all roads lead to Rome, the fact that you're a user and they're not becomes less alienating. I do look upon non-users as somewhat innocent though; like when someone who has never smoked pot before wants me to roll them a joint, there is a bit of a pitt in my stomach because of the responsibility I am undertaking of introducing them to this. It's like I am deflowering them or something.

I will say though, that self-proclaimed "drug/alcohol free" events are just as delusional as a society that thinks it can make itself drug free. I've been to plenty of drug-free events while being altered. It's all just a matter of how well you can socially integrate, and it's no different than going to any other social function while altered. If you can appear normal then no one really cares what is privately happening to you, and this is a giant hypocrisy that I enjoy pointing out. People enjoy social veneers but human realities make them very uncomfortable.
 
verso said:
I've got a lot to say about this, seeing as I was pretty straight edge for a while.

I'll write more later, but we're on our way to cop and I'm on my phone lol but I will say this...

I respect their feelings and I can understand where they're coming from, but at the same time, the drug game has opened me up to such new people and new experiences and I feel more worldly and empathetic now. I'd hate to have missed out on all that.

I'll explain more later lol
Click to expand...

OK so to elaborate...

I wasn't entirely straight edge and I never once declared myself straight edge, but I very much became straight edge in my behavior once my older sister fell off the wagon. I mean, we grew up together, smoking weed together and doing all of the normal, everyday, bored, middle-class and white, suburban kid sort of things; but then she began smoking crack and shooting dope, and I thought that she was taking things too far. In just one week's time, she lost her job (a good job, too, working at a doctor's office), crashed her car, and got arrested. It was unbelievable, man, and I just couldn't wrap my head around her behavior and just how much of an impact those drugs seemed to have had on her life.

I was in high school at the time, and I grew to hate my sister for all the headaches, the worrying, the stress and anxiety we felt. Is she coming home tonight? Has she been arrested? Who does she have in our house? Will she steal our things? Is she dead? So, needless to say, I took an entirely different trajectory. I hit the books, began taking school more seriously, applied to a couple of schools, took the SATs, and was accepted into the school I most wanted to go to. And even for the first couple years of college, I might have drank on one or two occasions, but I wasn't drinking every weekend, and I wasn't smoking pot or taking any other drugs. I was pretty... "square." lol

I was just so, so determined to be the total opposite of my sister, and my mother, actually. Without going into too much detail, I felt then (and still feel today) that both my mother and sister were too preoccupied with themselves and with each other to ever really give any sincere consideration as to how I might be feeling or how I might be doing. (Not trying to bitch, but that's just what it is...) So, for the most part, I stayed away from all drugs and alcohol and mind-altering substances, and I studied, and worked.

I'm not sure when it happened, but eventually, I just stopped caring. I think it was about the time my mother called to tell me my sister had relapsed, and, amidst all her ranting and raving, told me that if I couldn't handle doing x, y, and z, then maybe college wasn't for me. (She called not only to tell me that my sister had relapsed, but also to ask me for a copy of my unofficial transcript so that I could continue receiving the 'good student discount' on her car insurance.) But I was going to school full-time at the time, and I was also working two part-time jobs, and I had just made the dean's list for like the second time in a row... and I told her that I'd try to remember to bring her my unofficial transcript but that I had a lot on my mind and a lot to do. That's when she told me that "well, Steven, maybe college isn't for you then."

And that wasn't the only time she had thrown sand in my eyes. At every turn, it seemed to me that she would congratulate me, tell me how proud she is of me, and then kick me down and make me feel like all of it just wasn't enough and I still wasn't worthy of her trust, respect, or admiration. So, I think I just stopped caring, and I realized that no matter how hard I tried, it just didn't matter and I might as well be screwing up like my sister.

It wasn't a real calculated decision, but it began when one day I had a lot of papers to write and a lot of studying to do, and a friend offered me some adderall. I said "fuck it," took it, and felt un-fucking-believable. I had all of my work done in maybe an hour or an hour and a half, and the quality of the work was really, really good. I began taking adderall, a lot of adderall, and then I began taking other pills, and you see where this is going...

And honestly, I know that this is the part in the story where I should say I regret doing it, but I don't. Since then, I've taken lots of other drugs, and I've met some really interesting people, and I've had some really interesting experiences. I think that it's important to be book-smart, which I am, to some degree, but I think that it's also important to know how much a catalytic converter goes for at the local scrapyard, and I think that it's important to know how to act when you're around in the projects. In other words, I think that I've become a more well-rounded person, and I'm glad. I don't regret it.
 
Yeah another reason I was edge for a little bit was because of my brother... Him always getting arrested and this one night when I was younger he showed me he had some alcohol (this was when he was 18 ) and then I was like cool... Anyways the same night he ended up getting a dui and ran from the cops in his car (was on rims at one point)... He ended up crashing the car and he could of died. I felt so responsible for that for such a long time. I know it wasn't my fault but as a kid that shit fucks you up. Like wow I just let him go do that :\ so after seeing my brother go through so much shit I didn't want to mess with it. The ironic thing is he's the first person I ended up drinking/doing drugs with. He managed to get me into the drug scene.... Then it was me venturing off. Another reason I was straight edge was because of my dad being a huge crackhead.... Shit screwed up my childhood. I vowed never to touch crack and even when I used drugs. So the day when I tried it. It was like whoa wtf but I didn't like it anyways.
 
I hold a mixed opinion; if someone who has never attempted to see the mindset of users they are, in my opinion: arrogant, biased and quite frankly stupid.
Whereas, if they have been a user and then chose to remain sober they have my respect - they've tried both sides and made their choice.
 
i have a lot of respect for the subculture, never was a part of it as i've been getting high since twelve (making an attempt to stop right now.)
 
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