The X thing is an invention of a bunch of people who need yet another group to belong to... they called themselves Straight Edge... which they gleaned from a Minor Threat song, penned by Ian Mackaye (who is now in Fugazi). The cartoon simply makes fun of the fact that most people who are all hardcore straight edge are under 21, and soon after they give up their idealism and become massive hypocrits.

I've been vehemently anti-drug/alchohol/whatever most of my life. Mostly for exactly the same reasons you listed. I hated the taste and moreso hated the way people acted... i never understood why people would want to escape reality so bad and i thought it was weak and escapist. It was and still is a big deal for me to never be dependent on some substance or thing to get me through the day. I too never heard of "Straight Edge" until i was a senior in high school... and found it interesting that my "beliefs" had some sort of movement/label behind it. I never got into it though... i hated when people would call me that.

Fast forward to now... i can't say when or where i changed exactly... but i'm now 24 and didn't have a drink until the day i turned 21, mostly because i could think of no other way to celebrate, and even then it was one drink. I guess a big part of it was realizing that not everyone who drinks is a drunken [censored]. Meeting responsible people who can have fun and not be retarded about it was key i guess. Up until two weeks ago i could also say i'd never been drunk, but i had too much wine at a friends dinner party (still trying to figure out how that happened) and my stomach was pissed. Still never been really drunk though... stupid out of control drunk, and never plan to be. I dunno... things change when you age, and i've found that saying i'll NEVER do this or that is a recipe for... well, hmm. i dunno. It just rarely rings true. Whatever that means. I still stick to my guns and have never done a drug a day in my life. (if someone tries to get in an argument about caffiene or something else being a drug, you will be summarily ignored).

Blah blah blah... etc etc....

(woops... faulk beat me to the Minor Threat thing)
Ian is still ruing the day he wrote that song by the way... he HATES the straight edge movement.