Throughout history tattooing has seemed to be used in branding and marking people, to belong to particular groups. For example in Mayan culture tattoos were used on men as a sign of courage. So what i wanted to do was research a community who use tattooing as a symbol of their beliefs but is present in society now all over the world. We can see this in the straight edge community. What is meant by straight edge is a lifestyle that abstains from recreational drug use, smoking, alchohol, casual sex and in cases where the person is very strong in their beliefs even such drugs as caffiene. The straight edge scenes roots can be traced back to the Washington DC hardcore punk scene of the early 80's where bands such as Minor Threat gave the message of straight edge through their lyrics. Here is an excerpt from one of their tracks "Out of Step"
"Don't smoke Don't drink Don't fuck At least I can fucking think."
As you can see from this lyric the straight edge message was a very straight forward one but the idea was that some bands in this scene wanted to concentrate on making music rather than taking drugs.
However this message over time has formed into a community, which has its own symbols to represent it. The most common symbol is an X. Which many people have tattooed on their body to show that they belong to the straight edge community. This symbol has come from the x's that were put on peoples hands on the door at hardcore punk shows. It was adopted by the straight edge community because it is used on the cover of an album by a band called The Teen Idles. This band included Ian Mackaye and Jeff Nelson who went on to form Minor Threat, who coined the term straight edge and are straight edge themselves. The community still thrives today although people have used straight edge as an excuse for elitism which according to Ian Mackaye one of the creators of the philosophy is absolutely wrong.
Here is a link to a website full of straight edge tattoos:
Here is also a link to the record label Dischord records who released the prominent Washington DC hardcore records, from bands such as Minor Threat, Dag Nasty and Teen Idles. This record label is ran to this day by Ian Mackaye and Jeff Nelson of Minor Threat, who have know gone on to do other musical projects the most famous being Ian Mackaye's band Fugazi.
Above are photos of The teen Idles cover, An example of a Straight Edge tattoo and Ian Mackaye the singer from Minor Threat perfoming with the band.
1 comment:
It is interesting to see that a tatoo itself can symbolise so much. Especially with conforming to groups, although the irony is that, tatoos are usually an act of rebellion from one group but conforms to another group. I wonder if this is just another way to confirm that we have a distinct and individual identity.
Just food for thought!!
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