Are there any straight edge flutherites?

I’m not one, but I had no idea that Straight Edge and Vegan had overlap until I read the article. Makes a certain crazy sense, though I always thought it was a little odd that hyper-abstainers would be so into angry-sounding music and emotional issues, and vaguely threatening violence.

My youngest daughter and many of her friends are Straight Edge, but not vegan. Most are really into music, and seem to be working through idealism but disenchantment with the way society works, hence the anger in that comes out in the music. They’re not drinking the Kool-aid. They seem to be polar opposite of sorority/fraternity kids. Most have a really good personal value system, and aren’t fake. There’s no drugs going on, none of them smoke, drinking is usually beer only, and cheap beer at that. Most shop at the goodwill, aren’t into materialism, play a lot of original music or go to local shows, hang out in coffee shops, and can fix things. A lot are content to work low wage jobs and make enough money just to get by.

Several churches have sprung up in our area that seem to attract aging Straight Edgers. They are a community of artists and back to the land types with an urban community improvement focus. Example: they had a fall festival for the neighborhood the church is in, and offered free food, free family photo portraits, art activities for kids, brought in a petting zoo for city kids, sold low cost original art.

Not a chance. I’m definitely serrated.

I’ve known straight edgers.
The ones I knew hated were specifically against smoking, drinking, drugs and sex. They were angry most of the time but insisted on hanging around with people who participated in the aforementioned activities anyway. After a while I came to presume they hung around with those folks to so they could tell them they sucked.
It seemed like the only thing these straight edgers liked to do was fight.

When I was younger I was attracted to the idea of it. I think it was mostly due to the fact that I grew up in a Christian family so smoking, drinking and drugs were out of the question. No rules about listening to hardcore though so I thought It was cooler to say I was straight edge than to say I was a Christian when those issues came up. Now I am still a Christian but I don’t have strong convictions against smoking or drinking so I wouldn’t label myself straight edge. I think a lot of kids today do it to feel special and superior and I think that’s bullshit. But if it’s an honest conviction I can respect it.

One of my daughter’s friends did end up in a lot of legal trouble in high school for beating up a high school kid from a private school who was dealing to middle schoolers in our neighborhood. Several years later, the kid he beat up was shot to death in front of his mother’s house. Needless to say, daughter’s friend was investigated for probable cause, but was elsewhere that night. They know who shot the kid, but the arrest is complicated by surrounding gang activity. The police spent a lot of time trying to link said friend to the gang, which is rather ironic.

I don’t. And if i did i wouldn’t label myself with the term anyway. Just like i don’t brag about being a non smoker.

I find it really pretentious of someone to “be proud” of his dietary and health choices.

Not sure if they do it elsewhere but the Straight Edgers here usually put an X on the back of their hands with a Sharpie when they go to shows or are hanging out. That keeps the kids who are dealing away from them.

I don’t drink or smoke (except maybe a cigarette once every couple of months) or do drugs..I’ve never heard of the Straight Edge movement and can’t possibly even think of myself as straight anything…:)~

@PandoraBoxx i must have an X invisible to me but visible to everybody else tattoed on my hand, then, because nobody ever tries to sell me anything at concerts (except for band merchandise at ridiculously high prices).

I live a straight edge lifestyle in that I don’t drink or smoke and I don’t eat a lot of meat. However, I’d probably label it “Christian upbringing.” The Straight Edgers I’ve know/heard of were incredibly intolerant and violent. For example, for a good time on a Friday night, they’d beat the crap out of drunks.

There’s no way I’d want to be associated with them.

The only straight edge part of me is the no meat eating. I’m not vegan though.

@PandoraBoxx: At my college the sure way to know someone had been out the night before was the large X on both hands—meant they were underage. The clubs and venues do it so that the bartenders don’t have to deal with ID at the bar. I would imagine the two are connected.

what does straight edge mean? does it have something to do with type of razor?

@trailsillustrated Haha no, it explains on the link @jaketheripper provided.

We don’t seem to have too much trouble with Straight Edge violence around here, except for the vigilante element about dealing to underage. There is a Fight Club element, which is not associated with Edge Edge that rent apartments solely to have fist fights in. That’s a weird thing. Apparently it’s like going to a boxing match in an apartment…a kid we know had a roommate that was into that; they parted ways quickly.

The stratification of local high school culture is really interesting. You’re vilified for doing escort service at an abortion clinic, but not for having had an abortion elsewhere and showing up to protest at the clinic.

I’m practically straight edge since I don’t smoke, drink or do drugs. Or have sex but that’s against my will.

Wow. I thought the term “straight-edge” went out in the nineties. In my town the straight edge punks were worse than everyone else, even the gang-bangers. Violent and self-righteous. Not a great combination.

@tinyfaery Me too. At my high school there were some preppy non-partying types who drew X’s on their hands and decided to call themselves straight edge. One they realized the violence and intolerence usually associated with that group, they abandoned the idea and went back to just being regular preppy non-partying types.

remember, if you abstain from drugs, that includes one of the most poweful chemicals known to man. Caffeine. It’s in soda, coffeee, energy drinks, chocolate, and some pain medications. To be completely drug free means no antibiotics for infection, either.

No wonder straight edgers are so angry, a simple scratch can cause them a long and lingering death.

@Psychedelic_Zebra I’ve never heard of a straight edge kid refusing legitimate prescribed medicine. just harmful recreational drugs. I think they are fine with caffeine too.

@jaketheripper which one might say indicates a huge dose of critical thinking and coherence on their part… /sarcasm

I’ve known a few, some of them observed the abstinence and some didn’t. I’ll agree with @The_Compassionate_Heretic that they were a pretty angry bunch but maybe it’s because they were ex f__k ups and straight edge for them wasn’t so much a sought lifestyle choice as a desperate reach to be clean and hope from there things would turn around for them.

I recommend reading the Herman Hesse story about a “straight edge” society (though he doesn’t call it that). It is not only hilarious, but also very enlightening as far as this discussion is concerned. Shows a lot about human nature and its paradoxes.

I think straight-edge is a thing teens and younger adults get into, then they evolve from that into their own thing.

It attracts personality types that would otherwise get caught into some nasty stuff, so its actually a really good phenomenon.

@Thammuz I think It made a lot more sense when the movement started and now it’s kind of a trend that has lost it’s relevance. They were rebelling against the current trend of punks getting absolutely trashed all the time thus discrediting themselves and diluting their message. Straight edge was an answer to that lifestyle. They were pretty much saying that if you have strong beliefs you need to take life seriously. They didn’t think they were creating a code for people to live by.

@jaketheripper Problem is that if one has the strong belief that nothing really matters it’s only natural he’d ge wasted every fucking night… Sid vicious had it right. He was a moron, but he had it right as far as being punk goes.

@Thammuz ya that’s right but a lot of current punk at that time had a message of socio-political dissatisfaction and a desire for change. Straight edge bands held these values higher than the nihilism other punk bands demonstrated