Straight edge sentiments can also be found in the song "Keep it Clean" by English punk band The Vibrators, and the 1970s Modern Lovers song "I'm Straight" (which rejected drug use). Minor Threat frontman Ian MacKaye is often credited with birthing the straight edge name and movement and in later years has often spoken out about how he never intended it to be a movement. This anti-inebriation movement had been developing in punk prior to Minor Threat, but their song "Straight Edge" was influential in giving the scene a name, and something of a (somewhat unwilling) figurehead. Straight edge sentiments can be found in songs by the early 1980s band Minor Threat. The discipline of the subculture came from a mix of leftist radicalism and conservative influences. The movement was influenced by the political and social climate of its origin, around the time of the " Just Say No" campaign and a rise in conservative viewpoints. Straight edge individuals of this early era often associated with the original punk ideals such as individualism, disdain for work and school, and live-for-the-moment attitudes. Straight edge grew out of hardcore punk in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and was partly characterized by shouted rather than sung vocals. Later analysts have identified another era that has taken place since Tsitsos's writing. In 1999, William Tsitsos wrote that straight edge had gone through three eras since its founding in the early 1980s. In the 1970s, the punk subculture was associated with the use of intoxicative inhalants, substances such as model airplane glue that were inhaled for the intoxicating effect. Minor Threat, pictured in 1981, coined the term straight edge.
By the beginning of the 2000s, militant straight edge punks had largely left the broader straight edge culture and movement. In the early to mid-1990s, straight edge spread from the United States to Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South America. By the early 1990s, militant straight edge was a well-known part of the wider punk scene. During the youth crew era, which started in the mid-1980s, the influence of music on the straight edge scene was at an all-time high. hardcore scene who were frustrated by the rigidity and intolerance in the scene. Bent edge began as a counter-movement to straight edge by members of the Washington, D.C. Left-leaning activists have often approached straight edge with skepticism, ridicule or even outright hostility in part due to what they perceived as the straight edge movement's self-righteous militancy.
Although straight edge politics vary, from explicitly revolutionary to conservative, the latter has mostly dominated. Disagreements often arise as to the primary reasons for living straight edge. While the commonly expressed aspects of the straight edge subculture have been abstinence from alcohol, nicotine, and illegal drugs, there have been considerable variations. Since then, a wide variety of beliefs and ideas have been associated with the movement, including vegetarianism and animal rights. Straight edge emerged amid the early-1980s hardcore punk scene. The term straight edge was adopted from the 1981 song " Straight Edge" by the hardcore punk band Minor Threat.
For some, this extends to refraining from engaging in promiscuous sex, to following a vegetarian or vegan diet, and to not using caffeine or prescription drugs. Straight edge (sometimes abbreviated sXe or signified by XXX or X) is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs, in reaction to the excesses of punk subculture.