xXSTRAIGHTxEDGEXx

Today's Violation subject was suggested to me by TNM reader, Alex Rampone. Alex's hobbies include sniffing paint, sucking the co2 out of whipped cream cans, and other non-straight edge activities. Thanks Alex. If you want to be smart like Alex is, like TNM on Facebook, go to Discussions on the page, and tell me what you think is not metal. If your idea doesn't blow, I might write about it.

Only acceptable when used to rate porn.

I don't see how there is a united sense of brotherhood and pride in being a group of ideological killjoys. To be straight edge or "sXe" generally means that you don't drink, you don't smoke, and you don't do drugs. Sounds like a blast, where do I sign up? This is especially easy for most straight edge kids because they aren't 21 yet. It makes life a lot easier to brag about how you're on some higher form of existence, when really you're just a too much a fairy to drink underage. Traditionally, being sXe means that you don't partake in the use of mind-altering substances, and you don't have promiscuous sex. About 99% of sXe kids ignore this fact however, because they typically use their morals as a means to pick up women who are into the same stupid bullshit.

The history of the straight edge mentality can be witnessed in several eras and decades of punk, hardcore punk, and post hardcore music. The sXe way of life can also be broken up into several ideologies, gangs, factions, crews, and types. Nobody really cares though. All the stupid hullabaloo can pretty much be summed up with the fact that some teenagers went to a concert and got an "X" drawn on their hands by security in sharpie, so that bartenders would know not to serve them alcohol. Feeling left out by being too young to enjoy themselves, they started a super special club with each other to spite the grownups. This club was so super, and so special, even the adults got jealous and started to join. The rest is history.

This guy looks like he knows how to have a good time.

There will be a large number of people who will have concerns for, or outright threaten my safety after reading my negative views on straight edge. This is because a lot of sXe kids have this obnoxious pseudo-organized crime mentality. There's been a lot of horror stories woven of straight edge crews stomping kids to death the moment they sip a beer at a show, or perhaps a caffeinated beverage or the like. Save for a couple psychos in Utah who have nothing better to do (it's Utah), this has never happened, ever. Whatever adorable club name they like to assign their group of buddies, straight edge kids aren't gangs. The only weapons they have at their disposal are tank tops, stupid tattoos, and sobriety. A heated hardcore show shove match in a mosh pit does not constitute a gang fight on any spectrum. If you smoke a cigarette at a hardcore show, the most you are in danger of is some passive-aggressive scowling. Maybe pointing if the straight edge crew is considered "militant" or "hate edge". Why you're at a hardcore show in the first place is completely beyond me. If it was up to me, you'd be stomped to death just for having bad taste in music.

It makes a lot of sense that the breakthrough straight edge act was called "Minor Threat". A lot of sense.

The sXe guy is to parties what the vegan guy is to restaurants. It's impossible to have a good time with this chode. He will spend the entire get-together not drinking, not smoking and judging everybody else who works at a job strenuous enough to appreciate the act of unwinding. Even worse, a lot of straight edge guys extend their mentality into being vegan as well as being sober, making themselves this elite super asshole who is on an even higher level of supreme lameness. Not even those close-minded milk drinkers are safe. The only reason these douches gang up with one another to make silly crews is because nobody else wants to hang out with them. 


So what makes the act of being sXe not metal? As we all know, beer and whiskey are a vital part of a balanced metalhead diet, along with ample servings of meat, cheese and lightning. Getting dangerously cocked at a show, out with your dudes, or at home by yourself is as metal as it gets. Let's also not beat around the bush here: We owe the very creation of heavy music to the artistic assistance of alcohol, mary jane and psychadelic drugs. Whether you're into that stuff or you're not, you at least need to respect that fact. The rock music you kids live your life through wouldn't even exist without the drugs you align yourself against so fiercely.

It says a lot to me that you're stone sober and still manage to get tattoos like this one.

Let's think of it like this - without the good stuff, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath probably would have sounded a lot like Have Heart, and the metal genre wouldn't have lasted 20 minutes, much less half a century. You jerkoffs owe every riff, every beat and every bassline you ever chugged to your drunken pothead forefathers, and don't you ever goddamn forget it.