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 threadhope 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
I’m shreking up my arch install rn
I’ve Farquaad my network stack!
You’re compensating for something with your network stack?
I just shreked my opensuse
Ebbin my neezerinstall until it scrooges
Sometimes, I Miles Edward O’Brien my VM GPU passthrough.
Personally I’d put a higher priority on stamping out that use of “porn”.
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…
LOL yeah that’s a nice thing to put in the company search history
Pixel polishing. A term we use for frontend code at work (all backend developers).
Many daily-used words come from derogatory older meaning, it does not mean the current word with its current use is racist.
Moreover you noting “git master” as racist shows you think slavery only applies to a specific race which shows your ignorance.
The “linguist” take… Linguistics is about studying and observing language, not prescribing usage based on fake authority figure.
Personally I don’t feel either way about this stuff being racist or not. I’m an Asian and I am completely unaffected. But I do think that some people are, and it’d probably be nice to help those people vs. ignoring them.
For git master specifically, it was based off of a foggy memory of something in my RSS feed, and I was just pointing out that it was something that some companies addressed.
You’re in good faith so that’s cool. I just think those are kind of a waste of time because it throws bad shade over antiracism while it is still very much needed
Yeah, mods are power-tripping.
Gonna need a new Linux community soon.
Yeah always nice to be censored for stating facts
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!
-gasm!
jk I don’t have any better ideas
Here I am, an Asian, reclaim it to be neutral meaning. I will still use ricing.
Go check any English Asia Linux Group, especially on YouTube and Facebook Group, people are using ricing neutrally.
Language change with time, and making it neutral is totally fine and okay.
What you’re doing here is just yet another instance of Westerner forcing “correct English,” not realizing English is a global language and can develop independently outside US, Canada, or Europe.
This comment shouldn’t have been removed.
lol even funnier that this western-centric Lemmy removed my comment about ricing, while actual Linux community CJK countries or English Asia does not recognize it as a slur and use ricing neutrally. Basically reclaims it.
White knight syndrome so much.
edit: I rescind this comment because I seem to have misunderstood what the commenter meant by reclaiming. Sorry, I did not mean to be hateful.
I love when slurs are ‘reclaimed’ by people the slur doesn’t refer to.
Like how we ‘reclaimed’ all those native american stereotypes for sports teams
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.
a different comment was saying ricing has a sense of being overdone. So with this I was thinking of “overtuning.” I think it fits more as a hobbyist term than a pragmatic one.
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.
I’ve always used decked regarding to it.
Can’t people refer to it as their personalized setups? Or is that too hard to write?
Yeah but that’s missing the flair required by people who spend their evenings adjusting the radial blur on the window borders.
I have yet to see a personalized setup with blurred window borders xD
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.
To personalize your setup, is to deviate from the default config to better match your preferences - whatever those may be, however over the top those may be.
That doesn’t imply any optimization, unless it’s what you personally prefer.
Exactly my point. Most of us customize our setup one way or another, usually. Few of us are ricers in the traditional sense.
Customization is good!
rizzing?
Interface tailoring, desktop tapestry, jamming all up in my pazaaz.
@fool wait, how is this racist?
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.
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.”
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
@fool so it’s racist because we of Asian descent tend to eat rice? Are other Asians asking automobile enthusiasts not to use this or is it basic white girl stuff?
The origins are in reference to asian-americans customizing their cars as “ricing” them.
ricist
Edit: aparently it has chinese origins about modding cars so it is racist (?).
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.
