this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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I'd learned about this last week, and this stuff is a bunch of Wikipedia searches so forgive me if I miss anything :]

Similar to git master and whitelist/blacklist having addressed racist origins, I've just learned that "ricing" -- i.e. way-far-from-default, colorfully souped-up *nix customizations -- came from a derogatory word for Asian "riced out" cars.

(click to enlarge spot where I came to learn about this)


Example in the lemmy.ml/c/linux community.

The linked Wikipedia article doesn't list *nix ricing specifically, but it's probably not a far reach -- for example, tech's master-slave came from cars too.


Now I'm not here to start a debate on whether the term itself is bad. The arguments are done to death and predictable (old thread~hope~ ~I~ ~can~ ~link~ ~here~). Rather, I posit that we could probably invent a new term if we forced it hard enough.

For example, 4chan forcibly invented the use of the ok hand for "white power", as a collective prank (Wikipedia).

Further, Tumblr invented 'then beg' as an insult response to 'I beg your pardon/to differ'. (click to enlarge)

Based on Pukicho.

So why can't Lemmy invent something too?

Here are some earlier takes. (click to enlarge for source, but they are listed below anyway)

I surmise it has to be (1) somewhat unique and (2) short and nounable/verbable.

  • Customization doesn't fit -- it's too broad. Changing the wallpaper is a customization -- diagonalizing your screen is a rice (term to be replaced...).
  • Bespoke doesn't fit either. That's for a duct-tape script you hack together.
  • Pimping out... is not a good alternative. It preexists^(citation^ ^needed?)^ and has inertia but it's not any better.
  • Souping up... doesn't roll off the tongue so much. But it's food-related (and thus not far from "rice"). Though I can't see myself saying "Yo, check out this epic soup."

Brainstorming welcome :P

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[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 49 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I'm shreking up my arch install rn

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've Farquaad my network stack!

[–] Molten_Moron@lemmings.world 6 points 1 week ago

You're compensating for something with your network stack?

[–] andrew@radiation.party 10 points 1 week ago

I just shreked my opensuse

[–] fool@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 week ago

Ebbin my neezerinstall until it scrooges

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 6 points 1 week ago

Sometimes, I Miles Edward O'Brien my VM GPU passthrough.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 37 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Personally I'd put a higher priority on stamping out that use of "porn".

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 16 points 1 week ago

Agreed. This term "unixporn" bugs me. I cannot recommend those platforms to anyone, because of the direct use of "porn" term. Its like kiddies made up the term unixporn or something...

[–] fool@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 week ago

LOL yeah that's a nice thing to put in the company search history

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[–] inzen@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

Pixel polishing. A term we use for frontend code at work (all backend developers).

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This will and probably has got a bunch of flak but I'm with you. There's nothing wrong with recognising when we can pick a better term for something we enjoy.

Like, I get why people use "-porn" as a suffix and it isn't offensive to me but I still won't use that in a workplace. It'd be cool if someone thought of a better neologism!

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[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 week ago

Spice/spiced could work. But it's still an allusion, not sure if that defeats the point.

For example, 4chan forcibly invented the use of the ok hand for “white power”, as a collective prank

Which, outside of specific contexts where you're already confident someone is a WN, was quickly forgotten and never really took off. It's not a great example of a social shift.

[–] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Isn't it the same as tuning?

Although it's unclear what tuning is because it depends on who says it:

  • It does mean doing modifications to a vehicle for actual performance improvements
  • It's used extensively by ricers to describe themselves and their hobby and they think it's a positive term
  • It's used extensively by people who dislike ricing and most definitely as a derogatory term

Yet for all its faults, I believe that's the closest word to ricing you'll find that is universally understood, neutral and isn't rendered hopelessly bland and meaningless by the process of political correctness newspeak.

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[–] CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago

I've always used decked regarding to it.

[–] sntx@lemm.ee 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can't people refer to it as their personalized setups? Or is that too hard to write?

[–] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah but that's missing the flair required by people who spend their evenings adjusting the radial blur on the window borders.

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[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ricing isn't exactly the same as personalized though.

Ricing when it comes to cars is putting on a giant wing and a huge muffler on a Honda Civic.

Ricing in the Gentoo community is turning on every compiler optimization flag for the main portage config file without knowing what they're doing, potentially actually de-optimizing your setup.

There's an element of "overdone" involved usually whenever someone is called a ricer.

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[–] NorthWestWind@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Noodles - it's a mess of dotfiles

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[–] fu@libranet.de 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Originally it was a pejorative term for Japanese and East-Asian car modders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_burner Than the term moved from car modding subculture to computer UI modding subculture.

[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Interestingly, the place I heard it was in a completely different context, different meaning, but same derogatory connotation. In DoTA 2 esports, the Chinese pro teams were known for spending a lot of time "farming," (acquiring resources in a mostly passive way that can be a little boring to watch) so some people started calling that "ricing." "Farming", but Chinese, so "ricing."

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 week ago

The origins are in reference to asian-americans customizing their cars as "ricing" them.

[–] fool@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The old thread about it covers both sides of the coin.

Basically, "ricing" insulted weird Asian car customizations -> "ricing" became a more generic "weird" customization term (this is the most famous transitive example I can think of) -> ricing's origin was forgotten by a decent amount of people. (I mentioned it in the first spoilered text)

But I'd like to keep the focus on yoloing a term out of nowhere :D

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[–] codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago
[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago

Customization is good!

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I removed this because it has nothing to do with linux specifically, and as expected, it brought out a lot of people defending the use of this historically racist term, and /asablackman'ing it.

I've reinstated it and removed the offending comments for now.

Also I don't know why this needs a discussion at all. There's hundreds of words in english for something that looks good, and you can be more specific about it : snazzy, sleek, cool, streamlined, nifty, retro

[–] fl42v@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

removed the offending comments

In one of which an Asian dude literally says it's not used as a derogatory anymore. Talk about being offended for others

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

An stranger on the internet just gave you license to say a historically racist term, how convenient for you. Next they'll be some /r/asablackman posters saying its okay for you to use the n-word, because it doesn't bother them.

[–] TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I think the difference is that with the n-word both the targets of the insult and the non-targets recognize it as an insult. Meanwhile considering the rice-word, both parties either only know the current-day meaning or think that the insult and the description of someone making their car look (but not function) like a race car are 2 different terms with different origin.

You also seem to imply that the asian poster might have just been a white person trying to prove their point. Well here is a video of a chinese-american using it (and not as some kind of "protest slur" or what's the term for rappers using the n-word in their songs) https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=68sTT4mFTnA

I agree that using terms with racist origin is bad but I think that this term outside of the linux circles cannot be racist because nobody even knows it was racist at some point. edit: Obviously it should stop being used inside the linux circles because a) people here are more likely to read the wikipedia article than watch hours of automotive video content and b) the term does not even make sense for linux desktops because it just means "to make your desktop look cool". There aren't cosmetic linux desktop mods that make the computer look fast or like supercomputer or whatever.

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[–] AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah but it doesn't affect me and I'm fine with using a racist term because I choose not to think about it. That should make it fine for everyone.

I'm not racist I'm just so tired of all this anti-racist stuff @john89@lemmy.ca

[–] zod000@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

This is a tough one, because to me "ricing" or "riced out" carries additional negative undertones (racism aside). I have always heard it used in a way implying that it was referencing enhancements done in a cheap or gaudy/classless way. Think of the most Razer-like LED adorned gaming PC setup, that could have easily been described as being "riced up".

I think the phrase "decked out" works OK, and seems to also lack the negative connotation, which may or not be in line with the goal here.

Also, seeing your example ideas you shot down, I am not sure you full understand "souping up" phrase. The term "souped up" has been in use for over a century and I still hear people use it pretty frequently. It is generally meant to imply something has been made faster or more powerful, frequently with cars, and probably why some people argue it is a shortened version of supercharged. I agree that it probably isn't a good fit here, but not being of how it sounds.

[–] ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 week ago (4 children)
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[–] Eyedust@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I thought hard on this (I just like naming things). I came up with gemming. Graphical Environment Management. Unixgems.

It sorta works because customizing your environment is sort of like putting the finishing gems on it.

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[–] daytonah@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

Interface tailoring, desktop tapestry, jamming all up in my pazaaz.

[–] steeznson@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Is "ricing" not originally related to customised cars from street racing or something? I personally don't see an issue with it.

The activity itself is quite good for making people aware of how a desktop linux OS is working but doing it excessively is a bit silly so makes sense for jt to have a silly name.

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[–] fratermus@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 week ago

Saw the .de domain and my first thought was this was about using a potato ricer to make spätzle. I may not be normal.

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Customizing the shit out of

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[–] dewritoninja@pawb.social 7 points 1 week ago

I'm calling it giving the dirstro top surgery from now on

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Please report posts & comments that make use of the term on lemmy.ml; we remove them.

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