Extra stars for the "cute animal" shots when they go to the fur farm, and then the hard cut to the guy being interviewed next to the stuffed mink.

CM Punk simply told kids the truth: clean living is cool.

Why would you want to get drunk and act all stupid, when you could instead be focused, sober, and rational?

I used to think that back in high school, then I realized through experience that the focused, sober people are often the least rational of all.

Exactly, I always felt straight edge nerds are just incapable of drinking in moderation.

The trick is to not drink so much that you get completely destroyed. Drink just enough so that you get over yourself.

Cena - that's true, but only for certain values of the word "straightedge". Straightedge, as a lifestyle behavior, is fine, and most often leads to good results. "Straightedge", as a cultural identity, is a bit different. Most people who go out of their way to specifically identify as "straightedge" are either recovering addicts who need that extra "peer-pressure push" to keep them from relapsing, or they're products of a broken home who have seen firsthand the damage that drugs and alcohol can do. Or they're just twats. The first two groups I can't really blame - if you NEED to maintain your sobriety, it's good to have an outlet for that, even if oftentimes part of that outlet means being a sanctimonious prick. The third group is a bit of embarrassment, but we can take comfort in the knowledge that twats are as twats are. If twat sXers didn't get into straightedge, then they'd be getting into Socialjustedge or Statusquoedge or Religiousterroredge - any kind of -edge, really, which might give them an excuse to get offended and act mean towards people.

That was one of the great things about CM Punk. He's one of the cool straightedgers IRL, but whenever the storyline called on him to play a heel, he was able to channel that seedy underbelly of the straightedge identity movement, was able to drop satirical truth-bombs about the pitfalls of both addiction AND sobriety. It was truly profound social commentary, brilliance on a level far which exceeds John Cena's "drink your milk and salute the flag" pablum.

Just generally, people that feel the need to title themselves and build their identity around their participation or abstinence are usually boring people.

"I'm Veggie" is totally different ballgame than "I don't eat meat."

If that makes sense, you've probably met a few.

That's part of it for sure, and part of why Ian MacKaye disowned it, but the flip side is that groups like Skinheads Against Racism and FSU, who despite their own whole set of problems relating to violence and authoritarianism are overtly anti-racist groups, have a lot of overlap with sXe so I don't think it's just a simple correlation.