When two local straight edge people, Joe Bell and Evan Theriault, were asked how they discovered straight edge, and both responded with a music-related answer. Evan heard his brother speak about a band that was straight edge and he inquired until he learned the whole truth about straight edge. This truth seemed to fit him perfectly, so he pursued it. When Joe was asked, he responded by saying that he was already chemical free, but was having trouble finding a reason to stay that way. This was when he discovered the teachings of Ian MacKaye and Minor Threat. Joe now has the whole Straight edge song memorized, and has been straight edge for nearly 40 months. On the same note, when they were asked what influenced their choice to become poison free, Evan stated ".I realized what a crappy choice drugs were.", and Joe responded with ".Human stupidity was my largest influence in becoming straight edge. I saw people around me use drugs to escape reality.".
In order for something to catch on really well, it needs to have a catchy phrase or symbol. Straight edge seems to lack in a unitary phrase, although several exist. Two such sayings are "Stay sharp in a dull world", and "Keep your edge sharp". Straight edge, fortunately, has two very well known (amongst certain groups of people) symbols. The first symbol is a lower case s and a lower case e on opposing sides of a large X. The end result is sXe. Sometimes there is an h on the top and a c on the bottom of the X. The s and e stand for straight edge, while the h and c stand for hard-core. The big X symbolizes the times when underage people and adults shared clubs together. To keep younger people from being served alcohol, they would be identified at the entrance as either underage, or legal age. If they were underage, a big black X would be drawn on their hand. People to this day draw big X's on their hands to symbolize that they are straight edge.