This article considers straight edge bands as having a “prophetic voice” in a seemingly “secular” subculture, simultaneously critiquing the present and envisioning an alternative future in the tradition of punk and many other forms of music. Straight edge is a global clean-living subculture with roots in the hardcore music scene. The author shows that collectively, straight edge “preachers” inspire many participants to action, to make changes in their lifestyles and engage in contentious politics. The scene and identity become reference points as participants expose and critique social inequalities including racism, patriarchy, and speciesism, amongst others. The author demonstrates that the prophetic imagination is collective, rather than individual; often “secular,” though still imbued with sacred meaning; and especially powerful when embodied by a diversity of marginalized voices. The author concludes by discussing the relationship between individuals, groups, and social structures, considering subcultures as meso-level “laboratories” where participants adopt, create, negotiate, practice, and contest broader social changes. Such groups and meso-level communities serve as spaces of experimentation, where participants engage at the micro-level with broader, macro-level problems.
In the spring of 2019, Boston straight edge hardcore band Have Heart announced four summer reunion shows, the first shows they would play since breaking up ten years prior. Tickets sold out within seconds, genuinely shocking the band, who scrambled and announced two additional shows. Having missed out on the initial dates, I was lucky enough to get tickets to one show in Worcester, Massachusetts, and one in Los Angeles. In Worcester, 9,500 people baked in a hot parking lot outside the Palladium to see a band that had never released a record on a major label, never made a video, never received mainstream radio play. It was perhaps the biggest hardcore show ever played by a DIY band, signaling the profound impact they had on several generations of hardcore “kids.” At the Belasco in Los Angeles, Have Heart opened their set with Charles Bukowski’s poem “Bluebird,” an indictment of masculine emotional suppression, softly read by Tom O’Bedlam, whose deep voice filled the otherwise silent venue. As the band took the stage, this somber moment erupted into the songs “The Same Son” and “Bostons,” tributes to singer Pat Flynn’s father, who defied a sometimes-abusive upbringing to give Pat the opportunity to “be the boy you couldn’t be,” a boy allowed to shed the tears Bukowski and so many men could not.
And people did weep. Thousands of hardcore kids, crammed together, exchanging sweat, hands in the air, finger-pointing, singing—screaming together from their guts, with everything they had. Despite numerous signs dotting the walls of the venue prohibiting stage diving and moshing, a train of kids dashed across the stage and launched into the churning crowd. It felt like a hardcore revival. An ecstatic experience. Initially, I stayed towards the middle of the crowd, observing, even occasionally typing notes into my phone. But when the band played the staccato drum intro to “The Machinist,” a song about refusing to be crushed by the dehumanizing systems we inhabit, I pushed my way to the front where Pat grabbed my head, shoved the mic into my face, and we both screamed “I am—not machine!” Despite being extremely humble and down-to-earth, for a moment Pat seemed larger than life, a punk rock preacher sharing a joyful message of liberation and a withering critique of injustice and domination. Projected in enormous block letters behind the band, for the entire set: “Separating Children from their Families Is a Human Rights Violation,” in response to the Trump administration’s incarceration of migrants and immigrants at the US-Mexico border.
Participants praised these shows for weeks afterward on social media. One male user wrote that the experience “left me speechless and on the verge of tears multiple times.” They shared stories about how the band had changed their lives. Tish Rico, Diné singer for With X War, who gave a moving land acknowledgment prior to one of the LA sets, reflected on their experience via Instagram:
Thank you @pmbflynn for taking the time to listen to me talk about land acknowledgement and encouraging me to take the time I needed. I appreciate the words you speak about injustice. I appreciate how you try to reach out to humans who don’t understand (because I sure as heck have a hard time with that). I appreciate that you use your platform to educate people about the injustices of the world & attempt to help them understand that they must do more. I’ll never forget this moment.
The shows left many feeling energized, inspired, and connected to their community, what classical sociological theorist Emile Durkheim called “collective effervescence” (Durkheim 1915). But these events, perhaps rituals, suggest that straight edge hardcore is about more than music, more than these moments. What is the larger political significance of subcultures? How do people incorporate calls for change into their lives? What is the role of vocalists in delivering a message and encouraging action?
In this article, I consider straight edge bands as having a “prophetic voice” in a seemingly “secular” subculture that nevertheless feels profoundly sacred to many participants. I demonstrate how they simultaneously critique the present and envision an alternative future in the tradition of punk and many other forms of music. I show that collectively these straight edge “preachers” inspire many participants to action, to make changes in their lifestyles and engage in activism/contentious politics; it is one thing to imagine a different world and another to put that imagination into practice. Finally, I conclude by discussing the relationship between individuals, groups, and social structures, considering subcultures as meso-level “laboratories” where participants adopt, create, negotiate, practice, and contest broader social changes. Beyond music scenes, how are groups and meso-level communities spaces of experimentation, where participants engage at the micro-level with broader, macro-level problems—racism, sexism, and other inequalities? I argue that many straight edge bands, especially their vocalists, exercise a “prophetic imagination,” asking disruptive questions and encouraging change outside the structures of organized religion or traditional spiritualities.
Of Prophets, Punks, and the Prophetic Imagination
Prophets are teachers, leaders, and conduits between the people and the divine, inspired by god(s) to deliver a message. John the Baptist, the prophet Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and the prophets of the Hebrew Bible are amongst the religious leaders thought by some to have supernatural connections, channeling celestial guidance to followers. However, contemporary understandings of prophets disentangle them from divine intervention. Walter Brueggemann, professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, explains as follows (Sojourners 2018):
I think a prophet is someone that tries to articulate the world as though God were really active in the world. And, that means on the one hand, to identify those parts of our world order that are contradictory to God, but on the other hand, it means to talk about the will and purpose that God has for the world that will indeed come to fruition even in circumstances that we can’t imagine.
A prophet, then, may have unusual or privileged access to knowledge and a platform, using that knowledge and platform to engage the people in a dialogue about their fundamental values (Walsh 2013). The prophet may be “accuser and judge,” emerging when communal lifeways face significant threat (Darsey 1997, 24).
Pat Flynn and other hardcore musicians are not exactly prophets in the conventional or theological senses, yet they embody what Brueggemann (1978) calls the “prophetic imagination” in seemingly secular spaces. While I imagine them bristling at the comparison, they resemble traveling preachers in certain respects, sharing a message to devoted or potential followers via the ecstatic, emotional, embodied experience of a hardcore show. While Brueggemann centers Yahweh and Jesus in his discussion, he emphasizes imagining: “the offer of prophetic imagination is one that contradicts the taken-for-granted world around us” (2012, 2). The term juxtaposes the “earnest ethical urgency” of prophecy with the “playful, venturesome probing into the unknown” of imagination to offer “an elusive, daring, subversive verbal probe in ancient Israel that intended to subvert the settled political, economic order of royal Jerusalem” (ibid., 22).
The prophetic imagination, or speaking with a prophetic voice, is not simply telling the future, and in more secular contexts is not delivering a message from God. Mark Van Steenwyk, director of the Center for Prophetic Imagination and author of That Holy Anarchist, suggests the following (Center for Prophetic Imagination 2017):
When we start thinking about how society could be different than what it is, then we’re getting into the prophetic imagination. The prophetic imagination is the capacity to move beyond the world as it seems and begin to see the world as it might be. God’s vision for the world as it might be. Even more than that it becomes dangerous because the prophet evokes and challenges people to move from the world as it seems to the world as it might be. And it’s not just criticizing. Prophets don’t just criticize. They open up the possibility for a different world.
Implicit Religion
Francis Stewart (2017) has convincingly studied straight edge as an example of contemporary implicit religion. Participants demonstrate commitment to the community and its ideals, drawing deep meaning from their involvement. They integrate their commitment into their lives, connecting straight edge, and straight edge music, to other ideals (e.g., animal liberation, antifascism). And straight edgers’ intensive concerns produce extensive effects, shaping decisions and moving participants to change their lives, to live in ways they otherwise may not live (see Bailey 1997). The scene fosters connections between self and social, individual and society, both within and outside of the straight edge community. Moving away from a religious/secular, sacred/profane binary, Stewart argues “there is a vast range of human practices which are overlapping and do not solely or discreetly function as religious or secular” (5). For some adherents, straight edge serves as a surrogate for religion, facilitating the enchantment, rapture, and salvation of more organized faith while separating spirituality from the supernatural (Stewart 2017, 142–3).
Music communities may serve as sites of implicit religion precisely because they so often combine embodied, emotional experience with commitment and community. Musicians, especially vocalists, contribute to an interpretive framework, a lens through which adherents experience and shape their world. As individuals, they sustain the collective prophetic imagination of the scene, in many cases influencing participants as or more effectively than supernatural religion.
Straight Edge
The origins of straight edge lie in the Washington, DC, punk scene of the early 1980s, specifically with two songs by the band Minor Threat, “Straight Edge” and “Out of Step” (Haenfler 2006; Wood 2006). Some punks, including Minor Threat vocalist Ian MacKaye, enjoyed the rebellious individualism, DIY ethos, and artistic aesthetics of punk but questioned the “no future” attitude of some punks embodied by heavy drinking and drug use. Clean-living struck a chord, and straight edge quickly spread across the United States and the world—a forty-six-second song played in a small, underground scene and meant for a few friends became a worldwide movement that persists today (Rettman 2017). Straight edgers abstain, completely, from alcohol, tobacco products, and recreational drugs, often demonstrating this commitment via the movement’s symbol, an “X” or “XXX” found on clothing, in tattoos, or drawn on the hands with black felt marker. Many also support sexual responsibility, refusing “conquest sex,” or the hypermasculine imperative to “score” with as many partners as possible, especially with women. Participants commonly frame abstinence as a combination of self-actualization and social transformation, adopting the identity in defiance of substance use disorder (addiction), alcohol culture, and industries that profit from people’s suffering. However, as I demonstrate below, many connect their straight edge identity to other points of resistance, claiming that their “clear mind” nurtures a more critical consciousness regarding racism, sexism, heterosexism, speciesism, and other systemic inequalities. Most are vegetarian or vegan. Many have been involved in protest politics.1 Though straight edgers exist across the political spectrum, the majority profess progressive values and identities.2 Cisgender white men have long dominated the scene, but in the 2010s straight edge became increasingly diverse. Even as early straight edgers approach their mid-fifties, new cohorts of young participants adopt the identity, form bands, and ensure the scene’s longevity.
Methods
I have researched straight edge continuously since 1996, logging hundreds of hours of fieldwork at shows across the United States3 and five shows in London. In that time, I conducted seventy-five in-depth interviews, each lasting approximately one hour, which I later transcribed. I selected participants purposively to form a diverse pool of interviewees by race, gender, age, and involvement in the scene. Interviews took the form of guided conversations around themes such as social change, community, and aging. Social media has become a central platform for sharing music and sustaining music subcultures. I followed over 200 straight edgers on Facebook and Instagram, and I monitored active straight edge Facebook groups and Instagram feeds (e.g., Straightedgeinterviews), recording only publicly shared information and keeping all information confidential. Additionally, I have studied song lyrics, read online and print interviews, and perused dozens of recordings of live shows on the archival site Hate5Six (Hate5Six.com), recording hundreds of pages of field notes. Complementing these qualitative data, in late 2017, I deployed a Qualtrics survey that garnered responses from over 900 straight edgers from all over the world. My own straight edge identity of approximately thirty years allowed me access, insider knowledge, and a degree of credibility as I sought participants, even as I remained a “critical insider” (Hodkinson 2005). I primarily employed an inductive, grounded theory approach (Charmaz 2014), combing through and coding data for emergent themes. By using multiple data sources, I was able to cross-check information and question my own assumptions in an ongoing way.
Prophetic Imagination—Critiquing the Present and Practicing the Future
While some straight edgers strongly connect their religious and edge identities (see Stewart 2017), few identify with any organized religion: 53.8% are agnostic (15.5%) or atheist (38.3%). Another 10.3% are spiritual, but not affiliated religiously; 12.5% identify as Christian and 2% identify with all other categories; 10.5% report “none.” Straight edgers also have little faith in other institutions, with 74.3% reporting they have very little or no confidence in government. These data reflect widespread distrust of institutions.4 In this context, straight edge becomes a moral reference point and a locus of action, and musicians are conduits for prophetic messages.
Some bands have over time become legendary in the scene. Asked to list the most “influential” straight edge bands, survey respondents mentioned the following:
Minor Threat (69.6%)
Earth Crisis (38.4%)
Youth of Today (37.3%)
Have Heart (19.7%)
Judge (17.8%)
Gorilla Biscuits (15.6%)
Chain of Strength (8.6%)
SSD (7.9%)
Uniform Choice (6.0%)
Seven Seconds (4.8%)
Minor Threat’s Ian MacKaye criticized both punk and “mainstream” drinking cultures while championing individual autonomy. He made not drinking cool, prompting friends to call him the “group conscience.” As this message caught on, abstinence became part of an identity rather than simply a dietary choice. Ray Cappo (a.k.a. Ragunath Das) of Youth of Today and Shelter made positivity, spiritual seeking, vegetarianism, and eventually, Hara Krisha (“krishnacore”) central to the “youth crew” era (approximately 1986–1991), linking self-actualization with social transformation (but emphasizing the former). In the 1990s, Karl Buechner and Earth Crisis brought a more militant message of animal liberation, veganism, and environmentalism to the scene, becoming perhaps the most influential band on people’s decision to be straight edge and vegan. In the 2000s, Pat Flynn and Have Heart ushered in a youth crew revival while exploring vulnerability. Vocalists play an especially important prophetic role, as they typically write the lyrics, often articulate messages from stage between songs, and frequently become the public face of the band in interviews.
While respondents listed these bands, all from the United States, as especially influential, groups across the world have made their mark: ManLiftingBanner from the Netherlands, Refused from Sweden, Nueva Etica from Argentina, Congress from Belgium, Billy the Kid from Costa Rica, King Ly Chee from Hong Kong, the Geeks from Korea, as just a few examples. All of these bands criticized the status quo, imagined a different world, and called fans to both individual and collective action.
Critiquing and Imagining—Raising Awareness
A prophetic imagination suggests both social criticism and a vision for a different world. Punks have long done both, through lyrics, ’zines, and the prefigurative politics of DIY culture (e.g., The Subcultures Network 2015). Various straight edge bands critiqued alcohol culture, racism, colonialism, sexism and heterosexism, animal cruelty, and the stigma around mental illness, creating spaces where hardcore kids could learn about injustice. Their imagination, as Brueggemann (2012, 25) suggests, “moves outside the box of the given and taken for granted.”
Resisting Alcohol Culture
Ian MacKaye insisted that straight edge was a personal choice, and contemporary straight edgers often echo this sentiment. Yet many explained their abstinence in political terms, seeing intoxication as generally benefiting political and corporate elites. Carol, Brazilian and edge for twenty-one years, acknowledged that straight edge helped her stop smoking cannabis in the wake of her father’s death. But she said, “When I claimed straight edge, to me it was a political statement. While you are staying sober, you are more prone to question things.” Carol “learned that the Black Panthers, for example, used sobriety as a powerful tool against oppression.” Many participants believed that substances dulled critical thinking, telling listeners and audiences that sobriety was a path to revolutionary activity. German band CLEARxCUT echoed this sentiment in the song “I See a Light”: “If you want to change the world you’ll need a sober mind… Straight Edge resolution. Sober living for the revolution.” Columbian Steve Ortiz, singer for Kontragolpe and straight edge for nineteen years, said via Instagram,
“[Straight edge] is a direct action against the drug business. I live in the country with the highest cocaine production and generates hundreds of death[s a] year a government corrupt and na[r]coparamilitary, my fight is against this shit!”
In the big scheme of things, singing about not using alcohol, tobacco, and drugs may seem petty, even prudish or self-righteous. Yet for over forty years, people across the world, from youth to middle age, have found profound meaning in this identity, suggesting a desire for an alternative. Decoupling music from alcohol culture is socially significant, as is insisting that underage youth have access to music venues. In many contexts, alcohol is a taken-for-granted staple at most social gatherings, to the extent that individuals who do not partake feel compelled to offer an explanation. Young people, and often adults as well, feel pressure to drink, hence the classic Uniform Choice lyric that later became a popular T-shirt slogan, “It’s OK not to drink.”5 For many, straight edge became a label and community that supported them in their abstinence.
Nearly half (44.8%) of straight edgers reported that personal struggles with alcohol/drug use or abuse were very or extremely important in their decision to claim straight edge.6 Nick, a guitarist and former union organizer, said, “My mom was the local drug dealer.… I was twelve the first time I tried drugs.… I did stupid things. For one, I drank so much that I blacked out.” Rebecca, a small-business owner and singer of a vegan straight edge band, had a similar experience: “I definitely am a better human being sober [laughs].…I had gotten arrested and ordered to go to [Narcotics Anonymous] meetings and stuff… but that whole scene is just hokey and religious.… Straight edge is a different story.” For others, family and friends’ use impacted their decision; 51.4% suggested that family members’ or friends’ (45.6%) struggles were very or extremely important in their decision to claim. Nick continued,
I’m not going to go straight to a bar and then not come home until two in the morning, right, like that. That’s what a lot of us, you know, working class types grew up with was a dad that did that kind of crap. And it’s really destructive on a family. Because when people get drunk, they do dumb shit that betrays the family.
Jon, an academic as well as guitarist for a straight edge band, said, “I had seen the effects of alcohol in my home with a, with a stepfather who had a drinking problem early in life.…I saw behaviors, and, and heard hurtful things that made a lasting impression on me.” In valorizing abstinence, straight edge singers collectively helped make abstention more of a real possibility for others and affirmed the choices of those already committed.
Bands and singers critiqued alcohol and tobacco companies that intentionally marketed harmful products to young people. For decades, tobacco companies deliberately misled consumers, minimizing the risks of smoking, including its addictiveness and the harm of secondhand smoke. The US Department of Justice successfully sued Philip Morris under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the same law used to prosecute gangsters. Collectively withdrawing support for these industries felt like a refusal, an individual choice with social impact.
Antiracism, Indigenous Rights, Gender Justice
A host of straight edge bands has promoted antiracist politics. Mani Mostofi, singer of Racetraitor and a human rights advocate and activist of Iranian descent, regularly takes several minutes between songs to talk about white supremacy and Islamophobia. At a 2019 show in Portland, the band projected “Defeat White Supremacy” on the wall behind them. Mostofi, wearing a shirt that said “Straight Edge” down the sleeve, critiqued US border policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the alt-right, and atheist, but anti-Muslim, commentators who may appeal to hardcore’s questioning of religion.7
Other examples of antiracist messaging abound. At the 2017 This Is Hardcore fest in Philadelphia, Maurice “Moe” Mitchell, Black singer of the band Cipher and the national director of the Working Families Party, lamented the US’s “reality show” president (Trump) and outlined a host of intersecting oppressions (Hate5Six 2017):
They’re killin’ Black people on the streets like flies. If you’re Latino, if you’re transgender, if you’re gay, if you’re Muslim, if you’re Arab, the state apparatus is coming against us on a whole different level. If you’re a working-class person, income inequality is skyrocketing. The hardcore scene—and I grew up in the hardcore scene—is a rare space where people of all different race, class, gender expressions create a community together. [applause] And that’s one of the reasons why it meant so much to us.
Responding to police killings of unarmed Black people, Gouge Away vocalist Christina Michelle sings in the song “No White Flag” (2016) “Another word for ‘unarmed’ is ‘target.’” Arron Heard, Black singer for popular metalcore band Jesus Piece, regularly speaks and sings about institutional oppression and racism, including in the song “Oppressor”: “Refuse to become another target, another victim / Refuse to be labeled another thug or animal / let me live free.”
Tish, a non-binary, Diné college preparation mentor for Indigenous youth, promoted Indigenous rights, anticolonialism, and queer rights via their band With X War:
So I started this band, because I wanted to talk about indigenous issues because I felt like indigenous people are silenced. And they’re very much overlooked in our, our struggles are typically not put into mainstream media, or people don’t feel like the, you know data, statistics are high enough.…my lyrics are for indigenous youth.…And like, hopefully, you know, there’s an indigenous youth who lives on the reservation, who are like, Damn, I am pissed off, too. And I’m validated for my anger.… And I also wanted to talk about sobriety and what does that mean for indigenous people.
Playing in front of a large projection, “This Land is not your land, was not your land, and will never be your land,” With X War’s set began with a recording of Tish calling out whites’ “colonial mindset,” “colonial way of being,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility.” Most straight edgers feel very (59.89%) or somewhat (23.37%) positively about these moments at shows; only 4.52% feel somewhat or very negatively, indicating a supportive audience that has come to expect such messages.
As Have Heart demonstrates, some bands question the dominant gender order. Seattle band Lowest Priority challenged the male domination at shows and double standards, singing, “Pushed to the side, shoved to back / gotta stick together and take a stand / forced fed ideals, ‘dressed to impress’ / making girls in hardcore pass a f*@king test.” Trans-feminist band G.L.O.S.S. (Girls Living Outside of Society’s Shit) rallied against transphobia, classism, and racism with songs such as “Trans Day of Revenge.” Many bands have donated proceeds from records and shows to gender justice organizations. Philadelphia vegan straight edge band xKingdomx gave money from one release to Transitions, an organization in Cambodia that helps sexually trafficked girls heal and begin new lives. As the numbers of femme and non-binary singers increase, they amplify calls for gender justice both within the scene and in the wider society. This call is especially relevant in such a male-dominated scene, where most of the prophetic voices have been male-identifying. Women in some local scenes consistently felt not only outnumbered but less-than, as Carly, a baker and business owner explained here:
There was always that like lesser-than feeling being at a show because it would be 50 you know 30 guys to one girl and there was always that like coat rack feeling you know like, like “hold my stuff so I can go into the pit!” you know and, and that’s so that was definitely quite a regular like feeling within the hardcore scene to kind of be, to feel that you were always like lesser than. In terms of “how straight edge are you, you can’t possibly like be as straight edge as I am because you’re a girl.”
She noticed, however, that more women and people of color were getting involved and appreciated their voices.
Keeping with their opposition to “jock” or “lad” culture, many men rejected sexual conquest. The Minor Threat song “Out of Step” outlined straight edge’s basic strictures: “(I) don’t smoke. (I) don’t drink. (I) don’t fuck. At least I can fucking think.” The third declaration, “(I) don’t fuck,” has sparked debate for decades. While a small minority has interpreted “don’t fuck” as promoting complete sexual abstinence, the majority of straight edgers sought to challenge predatory masculinity and the treatment of women primarily as sexual objects. This differs from the focus on sexual “purity” promoted in some religious contexts. Again, the reality does not always live up to the ideal,8 and gendered inequalities persist. But many singers, across the gender spectrum, have spoken out against sexual violence.
These examples do not “prove” that straight edge is successfully antiracist and anti-sexist, devoid of racism, racial inequality, or cis-heteropatriarchal domination. Rather, they demonstrate continual struggle and the need for ongoing prophetic imaginings. Many punk scenes suffer from “whitestraightboy hegemony,” reflecting the very social hierarchies they aim to undermine (Nguyen 2008). Straight edge men compare themselves favorably to the “going rate” of sexism and gender discrimination, inflating progress and giving a false sense of gender (and race) equal opportunity (Mullaney 2007).9 Additionally, while the examples here demonstrate an antiracist politics commonly professed and aspired to in the broader scene, there are also singers, including some straight edge singers, spreading racist ideologies from stages (Anti-Defamation League). Some bands’ lyrics and live performance exclude women, explicitly or implicitly. Yet straight edgers across the gender spectrum express a strong affinity for the identity and community, and a diversity of voices are (re)shaping the scene. Bands offer a prophetic imagination that critiques and envisions a better future, to an audience largely uninvolved in organized religion and without direct access to academic texts, theories, discussions, and networks.
Mental Health, Animal Rights, and Total Liberation
Straight edgers have often engaged issues that, until relatively recently, have not received significant widespread attention, including mental health and animal rights. Reflective of and contributing to a broadening awareness of mental health, mental illness, and neurodiversity, bands increasingly confront the stigma surrounding depression and anxiety. Rikki, singer for Dying for It, talks openly about her struggle with depression while introducing the song “Light and Dark,” hoping that in sharing, she can help herself and others find some healing (Hate5Six 2019):
I’ve suffered from depression for the majority of my life.…If you suffer from depression, you know that it just takes ahold of you. It’s really hard to pull yourself up from that space. I’m really working on being more vocal and vulnerable about that part of my life, ’cause it’s a huge part of my identity.
She’s not the first straight edge person to sing about depression; in the 1990s, Unbroken, for example, explored loneliness and hopelessness. Yet Rikki is a woman of color who sees her lyrics as not only personally cathartic but an opportunity to enact a cultural shift around the intersection of mental health, sexism, and racism:
I am still a minority and having a voice I think I just feel a responsibility to try and represent women and women of color, and straight edge women of color, now. I think I put a lot of responsibility on myself to, to represent those types of people.… I’m really pumped about these issues that are, that do affect me, maybe not, like, internally the way my depression does. But definitely, I think they’re contributors to that. And I realize that now.
For nearly thirty years, one of the most prominent prophetic messages in the straight edge scene has been that of animal liberation, pushing back against prevailing notions of non-human animals as utilitarian objects for humans’ use and consumption. Building on earlier work by Youth of Today, Insted, and others, vegan straight edge band Earth Crisis had a massive impact on global scene from the mid-1990s to the present. Songs like “New Ethic” (1995) challenged anthropocentrism and animal abuse, calling listeners to veganism long before veganism became a more widespread trend in the 2010s. Many individuals, and many bands, now intentionally and explicitly identify as vegan straight edge, or XVX. In their spoken word style prelude “Until Every Cage is Empty” (2016), Florida’s Gouge Away offer graphic descriptions of medical animal experimentation, framing it as torture, leading into the song “Uproar”: “I’m not made for your science experiment / Stop testing on me.”
In a 2007 interview on DIY Conspiracy, Seattle band Gather, like many bands, connected animal liberation to other hierarchies: “We wanted to espouse the message of, primarily, Animal Liberation, but soon came to realize that all liberation struggles are linked, and really sang about Total Liberation” (DIY Conspiracy 2007). Tish explained that part of the impetus for starting With X War was to connect various issues, including animal liberation and anticolonial struggle:
I had made this big post about Thanksgiving—I like to call it Thankstaking—just about, you know, the shit that happens and being frustrated that veganism, you know, although it’s great that they talk about the things that happened to turkeys and animals during holidays, but never talked about the impact that it has on indigenous people.
While initially straight edge men brought a prophetic voice to animal suffering, the vocalists of Gather, With X War, Gouge Away, and many other bands identify as women or non-binary, many bringing a much more intersectional lens to the prophetic imagination (Crenshaw 1989; Hill Collins 2019).
In each of these cases—resisting alcohol culture, racism, sexism, ableism, and so forth—straight edge vocalists are both offering new ideas and affirming values and practices already shared by some in the scene. They are not preaching to empty vessels but engaging audiences who bring various levels of understanding, experience, and action to these issues. For some, hearing an antiracist message from the stage, voiced by a respected musician, is revelatory. For others, such messages affirm already held but imperfectly practiced beliefs. Both experiences are meaningful. The power of the moment lies in the collective hearing and expression of social critique and imagining new possibilities, in the context of the sacred space of a show that inspires participants’ actions throughout their lives.
Practicing Prophecy—Taking Action
The prophetic imagination doesn’t amount to much if it fails to translate somehow into action, tangible attempts at bringing a new world into being. The prophetic imagination critiques and sets out a vision, a call. In the case of straight edge, vocalists often direct that call to the scene, to society, and to self. With high ideals, incomplete information, and a variety of mechanisms of exclusion, bringing that vision into being is profoundly challenging. Yet while insiders may exaggerate punk’s political potential, outsiders often devalue or diminish a scene’s impact because of the contradictions in the scene. Any subculture embodies both resistance to and reinforcement of dominant social hierarchies and oppressions (Haenfler 2023). Yet straight edgers have taken action, via their lifestyles, charitable activities, and contentious politics. Adopting a straight edge identity does not cause political participation but does act as a motivational resource and community of accountability for many adherents.
Lifestyle Activism—Abstinence, Vegetarianism, and Veganism
Straight edge is an example of a lifestyle movement, a “loosely bound collectivit[y] in which participants advocate lifestyle change as a primary means to social change, politicizing daily life while pursuing morally coherent ‘authentic’ identities” (Haenfler, Johnson, and Jones 2012, 14). Not using alcohol and tobacco is a seemingly personal, individualistic choice, but subjectively understood as resistance, connected to a meaningful identity, and often publicly pronounced, becomes collective action and an example that others might follow. Rather than targeting the state, lifestyle movements focus on cultural change, prefiguring the world they envision (Haenfler 2019). Disconnecting music from alcohol sales, making shows accessible to all ages, and challenging the ubiquity of alcohol culture become acts of defiance. As Kentucky band Inclination suggests, “This is active opposition to a world full of addiction” (Inclination 2017). Explaining how straight edge was both a personal choice and a stance against normalized drinking, Veronika, singer of California band Redwoods, said.
I think it’s like, it’s, it’s perfectly fine for somebody to grow up and not have experienced getting smashed for their twenty-first birthday. Like, I don’t think that that should be like, a normal milestone for people. So how can you communicate that? And how can you express that? You know, if everyone’s just too afraid to say that, if everyone keeps those thoughts and ideas to themselves, then it just perpetuates the things that we, you know, are against in the first place.
Likewise, vegetarianism and veganism are seemingly personal dietary choices. But understood as part of environmental, worker, and animal liberation struggles, these choices also become part of a collective effort. Just over 37% of survey respondents said they were vegan, a percentage far higher than vegans found in the general population of any country of which I am aware. Many came to veganism through or in the midst of straight edge: 42.16% said they were introduced to veganism by a straight edge friend and 49.35% said a band/song inspired their veganism. Only 19.6% claimed they were vegan prior to claiming straight edge and 12.1% said straight edge did not influence their veganism. Madeline, one of two vocalists for St. Louis band Redbait, was vegan prior to claiming straight edge but sees the two as intimately connected:
I kind of think that you can’t be straightedge without being vegan, if that sounds weird, but [laughs] for the same, for similar reasons, because it’s about harm reduction, and ultimately, elimination of unnecessary violence and suffering. And those, those issues intersect in a lot of ways when you consider like slaughterhouses, for example. So not only is there vicious animal cruelty, but workers of slaughterhouses are, are oftentimes immigrants, who are taken advantage of because of their immigration status. They don’t file, the employers don’t file any complaints to OSHA10 even though there’s, there’s so many instances of on the job injuries.
Madeline and many other straight edgers saw their personal choices in political terms, in a sense boycotting alcohol, tobacco, and meat companies and prefiguring a world where drinking and eating meat were not the default. Their actions, when visible (even in a relatively small way), sent a message to others who may not have considered alternatives, setting a prophetic example just as the scene had done for them. Straight edgers repeatedly claimed that straight edge, and Earth Crisis specifically, inspired their veganism and nurtured their animal rights activism. The impact is clear, as straight edgers practice these diets at far greater rates than the general population; for example, about 5% of US adults consider themselves vegetarian,11 and 1.16% of Great Britain identifies as vegan.12
Charitable Giving, Fundraising, and Benefit Shows
Benefit shows have a long tradition in punk and hardcore scenes as participants raise money for community members, local organizations, and international mobilizations. In conjunction with the neoliberal dismantling of the welfare state in the United States, subcultural communities have become a source of support. When Cave In bassist Caleb Scofield suddenly died in an auto accident, friends, bands, and labels raised money in support of his wife and children. When former Bane bassist Brendan “Stu” Maguire was diagnosed with cancer, hardcore documentarian Sunny Singh of Hate5Six helped raise over $40,000 to help with medical expenses via a GoFundMe campaign.
More commonly, bands, promoters, and venues raised money for local organizations by donating part of the cover charge from live shows. For example, members of St. Louis band Redbait organized 2019’s Kittyfest to raise money for Tenth Life Cat Rescue. Others, like James, have raised funds for women’s shelters, toy drives, and homeless organizations:
I always loved doing charity-based shows and benefit shows because people always seemed to show out for them and I felt like it was important to build that sense of community on important issues and I always wanted to keep my charity work local so people could see and feel that positive change in their backyard.
James and other St. Louis friends even officially adopted a section of Missouri highway, taking responsibility for picking up roadside trash.
Straight edgers and hardcore kids do not confine their giving to their own community. In the wake of the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, many hardcore musicians and labels raised money for a variety of groups associated with the broad Black Lives Matter movement. As protestors took to the streets, Have Heart’s Pat Flynn and Kei Yasui marshalled friends and companies to match donations to bailproject.org, raising over $100,000. Bridge 9 Records auctioned off test pressings of their releases, raising $6,625 for Campaign Zero, and a variety of bands donated Bandcamp and other proceeds to organizations committed to fighting for Black lives.13
These efforts constitute a different form of fundraising and charity than traditional top-down, organizational approaches, reflecting a spirit of mutual aid, community responsibility, and solidarity supported by a meaningful collective identity. This aid, whether to known individuals, local organizations, or activist groups, imagines and prefigures a world in which people care for one another even as government safety nets erode.
Activism and Protest Politics
Not every straight edge person is an activist, just as there are many activists who are not straight edge. Yet some participants connected protest politics to their edge identity, and straight edge singers regularly called upon audiences to get active. Reflecting a broader mistrust of government, few straight edgers (19.2%) believed that electoral politics provided the best path to change. Most ranked lifestyle changes (58.4%) or protest politics (22.4%) as the best avenue to make a difference. Straight edgers reported participating in various forms of activism: 39.4% claimed they had marched in street demonstrations, 24% committed civil disobedience/direct action, and 25.5% had picketed/held signs.
The prophetic imagination of many straight edge bands—especially Earth Crisis—have prompted direct action animal liberation protests in addition to vegan diets. Pawel, a Polish immigrant living in Australia, regularly participates in public demonstrations via tactics such as the “cube of truth.” Activists form a square while wearing large, outward-facing TVs/monitors playing horrific scenes of animal slaughter, while comrades engage passersby with conversation and printed information. A few straight edgers have participated in more radical action. Walter Bond completed a ten-year prison sentence for arson in conjunction with the Animal Liberation Front.14 While a variety of experiences led him to veganism and eventually direct action, straight edge was an important part of his identity (Pieslak 2014):
After viewing slaughterhouse production first hand, I was not interested in hippie and ultra pacifist answers to the horrors I had witnessed. I became Vegan out of disgust for what Animals suffered not out of sensitivity, per se. So XVX (Vegan Straight Edge) was very appealing because it was the only subculture within Animal rights that I found was approaching the issues morally and with a sense of ferocious empowerment, which is what I believed, and still believe is necessary to combat the profound wickedness of Animal use and abuse.
Some straight edgers are drawn to antifascist and antiracist organizing. Members of Redbait participated in civil disobedience protests in Ferguson after the 2014 police killing of unarmed eighteen-year-old Black man Michael Brown. Vocalist Madeline, well-versed in Communist and feminist writings from a young age, noted the importance those protests in radicalizing and bringing people (including straight edge people) together: “A lot of that had to do with Ferguson to be honest. So people really got together and started to mobilize and act.” Some were inspired to activism by their straight edge networks and identities; others had their activism affirmed by the scene. At the same time, their activism shaped straight edge.
Still other straight edgers formed or worked for nonprofits and humanitarian organizations. Tim Rusmisel, former drummer of Seven Generations, Xs tattooed on his hands and “vegan” across his neck, founded and directs ecodefense organization Vital Actions, working with local communities to protect turtles and other wildlife in Nicaragua. Greg Bennick, vocalist of Trial and xBystanderx, formed OneHundredforHaiti in the aftermath of the massive 2010 earthquake that devastated the country, creating rural water projects and programs against sexual assault. Greg explained that the DIY ethic he learned from hardcore infused the organization’s approach to supporting local leadership:
The idea that we’re going to, you know, listen to people who want to do it themselves in Haiti, and then support them, you know, allowing other people to do it themselves on their own terms and supporting them doing that.
Thus for many participants straight edge bands spread a broader prophetic vision than abstinence from drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. The identity served as a focal point through which to orient a variety of practices.
Conclusions
In this paper, I have demonstrated how straight edge hardcore bands share a prophetic imagination in a subcultural space. Their music facilitates a joyful, cathartic, creative experience that inspires many participants to consider new ideas, envision different futures, and practice new ways of being. (I emphasize practice, implying repeated failure and an ongoing effort with no final destination or finish line.) Social movement scholars too often minimize the importance of emotion, joyful celebration, and community networks in collective action, privileging “rational” planning and organizing (Morris 2019). But straight edge is simultaneously music community and fictive kin, leisure space and lifestyle movement. While for some adherents it is a strictly personal choice for individual betterment, evidence suggests that for many others straight edge becomes a reference point that bridges self-actualization with social transformation. DIY cultures “can offer space for dialogue and critique that both reflect and inform larger cultural conversations, as well as helping individuals more clearly understand their experiences in systems of power and inequality” (Haenfler, 2023: 73).
As an implicit religion, straight edge stretches our thinking about the prophetic imagination in several ways. The prophetic imagination is a collective, rather than individual, endeavor. Straight edge has fostered its share of charismatic leaders; individuals such as Ian MacKaye, Ray Cappo, and Karl Buechner brought new ideas and practices to the table. Without MacKaye and his lyrics, there might not be a global straight edge community. Without Cappo, it is unlikely that “positivity” and Krishna Consciousness would have caught on as much as they did (even if there were earlier connections to hardcore). And without Buechner and a few others, veganism might not have become a possibility (and moral responsibility) to many in the global scene. Yet as an idea catches on, a collective of people establish and “preach” it. Individuals may embody a prophetic imagination, but they do not exist in a vacuum, nor do they usually receive spontaneous inspiration via divine intervention. They draw inspiration from the variety of groups they encounter and in turn can influence those groups. To some degree, bands preach to the already converted, celebrating and reinforcing values now long-practiced, providing consistency, accountability, and the collective effervescence of shows that reinforces belonging. The collective prophets gradually may influence cultural possibilities beyond the scene via their shared vision and practice. In fact, “straight edge” is slowly entering popular discourse, becoming synonymous with sobriety and claimed by some individuals as part of their recovery process rather than their encounter with hardcore. Likewise, veganism is growing, with new options showing up in many markets and on many menus.
Absent more formal structure of organization, family, or clan, the prophetic imagination takes the form of collective sentiment, rather than centering a singular or a few charismatic singers. As subcultural voices, straight edge “preachers” have no formal legitimacy. Despite their prophetic message, and unlike the Abrahamic prophets or Jesus Christ centered in Brueggemann’s writing, they are “ordinary” in the most ordinary of ways. Pat Flynn is a high school history teacher. Tish Rico works for a Native American nonprofit, counselling youth about college and career. Ricki is a hair stylist. A few straight edgers are professional musicians, but most combine their subcultural allegiances with conventional work. They are bakers, construction workers, tattoo artists, and web designers. These “prophets of the everyday” may sometimes be “scene famous” but will never be famous in any substantial way.
In addition to these insights about the prophetic imagination, straight edge demonstrates the importance of group life in understanding social change. Subcultures are “tiny publics”—groups or “idiocultures” that link structure and agency, society and individuals. Such tiny publics become “not only a basis for affiliation, a source of social and cultural capital, and a guarantor of identity, but also a support point in which individuals and the group can have an impact on other groups or shape the broader social discourse” (Fine 2012, 1). Resistant subcultures in particular may serve as meso-laboratories in which participants practice ideals and behaviors extolled through a prophetic imagination. Worley (2017, 18) claims that “youth cultures may thereby constitute formative sociocultural and political spaces through which young people develop, experiment and acquire understanding. In other words, they provide portals to alternate points of reference and information that help forge individual and collective identities.” As straight edge’s brand of sobriety expands beyond hardcore and veganism continues to grow, we see how a subculture (as one form of idioculture/group) both influences and is influenced by larger cultural and structural forces. The prophetic voices of straight edgers bring an urgency to these issues outside of traditional religious contexts, as do other groups.
Beyond animal liberation and clean living, straight edge serves as a “lab” of experimentation wherein participants reveal, discuss, and contest the meanings of social hierarchies. The straight edge community both reflects and contributes to larger societal conversations and struggles (e.g., #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, queer movements) and provides space for individuals to consider personal experience and identity in these contexts.15 Over the last twenty years, straight edge has become increasingly, if unevenly, diverse. Marginalized voices of Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, queer, trans, non-binary, and neurodiverse people collectively bring an especially powerful prophetic imagination to the scene and beyond. Their standpoint, their lived experience, makes possible and often requires the ability to recognize hierarchy and name oppression in a way more privileged people can or will not. This is true in both traditional religious settings as well as here. Patricia Hill Collins (2019, 182) states that “community is simultaneously a process and a structure.” She continues (ibid., 184):
In this way, because people exercise power in their everyday lives as individuals within communities, they use the construct of community to think and do politics. Stated differently, the construct of community provides a template for describing actual power relations as people live them and conceptualize them. People use the idea of community to organize and make sense of both individual and collective experiences they have within hierarchical power arrangements. A community is more than a random collection of individuals. Rather, communities constitute important sites for reproducing intersecting power relations as well as contesting them.
Subcultures and other idiocultures are not static “things” or clearly defined groups. Rather, they constitute ongoing projects, spaces of experimentation, confrontation, and affirmation. Within them, individuals express a prophetic imagination, pushing adherents to change. However, subcultures can become collective prophetic voices as well, contributing, with other idiocultures, to larger social struggles. As Benjamin (2022: 18) claims, “all the great transformations that societies undergo rely on the low-key scheming of everyday people,” those “individuals and groups who’ve decided to disrupt the status quo.”
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Francis Stewart and Mike Dines for organizing the 2019 Punk and the Sacred symposium at which I delivered this paper as a keynote address. Thanks also to Denali Carpenter and Xavier Escandell who helped with data analysis.
Published online: February 14, 2025
Notes
Survey data show that 37.05% of straight edgers identify as vegan, and another 16.01% vegetarian. Thirty-nine percent report having taken part in street demonstrations, and 24% claim involvement in civil disobedience/direct action.
Survey data show that 45.9% identify as “extremely left/liberal,” 27.3% as liberal, and only 4.4% as conservative or extremely conservative/right.
I attended shows in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Denver, St. Louis, Des Moines, New York, Boston, rural Connecticut, and Seattle.
For the US case, see Pew Research Forum “Key Findings About Americans’ Declining Trust in Government and Each Other,” https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/22/key-findings-about-americans-declining-trust-in-government-and-each-other/ (Accessed 16 June 2020).
From the song “No Thanks” on the record Screaming for Change (1986).
A majority suggests that struggles with alcohol/drug use or abuse were moderately, very, or extremely influential in their decision to claim straight edge: personal (59.6%), family members’ (70.7%), and friends’ struggles (67.6%).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mhTPohcsEQ (Accessed 10 June 2020).
Women accused several high-profile straight edge musicians of abuse, sexual misconduct, or sexual assault over the course of this research. And in certain scenes, some straight edge men largely resemble (in aesthetic and demeanor) the jocks and lads they claim to abhor.
Survey results show that men are significantly more likely than women to believe the scene is welcoming to women; however, most women (78%) also believe the scene is welcoming.
US government regulatory agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
2018 Gallup Poll https://news.gallup.com/poll/267074/percentage-americans-vegetarian.aspx (Accessed 13 January 2021).
2016 Ipsos Mori survey, commissioned by The Vegan Society, https://www.vegansociety.com/news/media/statistics (Accessed 13 January 2021).
This was the case across many music communities, including hip hop and metal.
http://supportwalter.org/ (Accessed 1 July 2020).
This interplay between the micro and macro, mediated at the group level, happens of course across the political spectrum. So there are subcultures, or more broadly idiocultures, on the right, that paved the way for the rightward tilt in the US, UK, and elsewhere. And those idiocultures are influenced by the larger political structure, becoming emboldened by the Trumps, Borises, and Farages of the world.
University of California Press