One of the weird little things we noticed when we were tracing the evolution of high school cliques last month was how 15 years ago basically everybody into punk was straight edge while nowadays there's nobody rocking the Xs. For a brief second we thought it might have something to do with people being turned off by the growlier territory into which hardcore was pushing or the ever-increasing dogmatism of the lifestyle, or maybe something to do with the internet breaking everybody's sense of the "scene" and staying posi. But then it occurred to us that back when even nerds spent the entirety of their free time trying to get loaded keeping sober actually took a little bit of ballsiness, whereas now it's just a safe port of entry for folks who's very idea of "punk" is enough to drive you to drink. Folks like this.