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

  • kbal@fedia.io
    4811·
    4 days ago

    Personally I’d put a higher priority on stamping out that use of “porn”.

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
    171·
    4 days ago

    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.

    • tuna@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      2 days ago

      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.

    • fool@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      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.

      • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
        191·
        4 days ago

        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

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
    288·
    4 days ago

    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

    • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
      177·
      4 days 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

    • fl42v@lemmy.ml
      2112·
      4 days ago

      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
        233·
        4 days ago

        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.

        • fl42v@lemmy.ml
          38·
          3 days ago

          Should they’ve included a selfie or an id pic? Because when black ppl use that n-word you’re trying to draw parallels with (which, BTW, is still a derogatory towards a person and has no other meanings, as far as I’m aware) nobody gets offended. And, aside from the use of the “r-word”, their comment was a valid opinion on topic asking for that opinion

          • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
            71·
            3 days ago

            It’s not like black people using the N-word, it’s like white people using the n-word because a stranger on the internet said it’s ok.

            aside from the use of the “r-word”

            You don’t think them casually dropping a slur might invalidate their opinion on whether a different word is a slur? Fucking LLM-ass logic right there.

            • fl42v@lemmy.ml
              1·
              2 days ago

              The “r-word” in question refers to the being food discussed (although it’s not really a discussion, given we have the correct opinion and “your comment is getting deleted” opinion) in the post, since we’re apparently deleting comments for using it now. Hence the quotation marks.

              As for the 1st paragraph, (a) i’m arguing it’s nowhere like using the n-word at all, and (b) it was said by the Asian dude, so I don’t see how so.

              • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.net
                1·
                1 day ago

                Are you telling me that you have so little understanding of slurs and their use that you think people are getting banned for saying using the word rice? You cannot be serious. How dare you think you have the intelligence to hold an opinion.

                I know what you’re arguing you fucking dunce, I just told you you’re wrong. There are plenty of slurs that aren’t as bad as the n-word, you’re not allowed to use any of them. And b) doesn’t matter. You don’t use the n-word even if a black person “gives you permission”, because that makes you a fucking racist.

                • fl42v@lemmy.ml
                  1·
                  20 hours ago

                  I’m telling you the post explicitly asked about opinions, and the “wrong” ones that used the “r-word” happened to be blocked, and there is a comment from another mod that explicitly tells they’ll remove stuff using that. Although it’s a reasonably short comment that’s easily blocked from view with a medium-sized justice boner, so it’s understandable you’ve missed it.

                  Although, you’re somewhat right, the meaning of a slur was a bit off in my vocabulary. I’d still argue it isn’t one in context ('cause it neither refers to a person nor is it derogatory in its current form)… However, I’d also like to play along and give you folks another (and, arguably, a more worthy) which hunt target – chinesium. You know, currently a derogatory, currently refers to a particular nation, so…

      • araneae@beehaw.org
        1·
        3 days ago

        I saw a BlackPeopleTwitter post yesterday where one local (so, black) user gave another Asian user a coveted “invite to the cookout” for posting some decently well meaning kinda intersectionalist words, and they ATE THE FORMER USER ALIVE, saying paraphrased obviously “we give this privelage out way too readily to people who evidence the bare minimum decency”. Some people want to gel so bad they jump the gun and so you can’t assume one minority giving you a privelage related to their community stands for all in the community. The paradox of the N-pass.

        • codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          5·
          3 days ago

          The paradox of the n-word pass is similar to the paradox of the daoist leader; if you were of good enough character (as an outsider/Bourgeoisie) to warrant the privilege of leadership/cookout, then you’d be wise enough to never want to use them.

  • inzen@lemmy.world
    19·
    3 days ago

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

  • comfy@lemmy.ml
    17·
    3 days 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.

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
    193·
    3 days ago

    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!

  • sntx@lemm.ee
    142·
    3 days ago

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

    • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
      13·
      3 days ago

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

      • sntx@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 days ago

        I have yet to see a personalized setup with blurred window borders xD

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
      11·
      3 days ago

      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.

      • sntx@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 days ago

        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.

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
          3·
          2 days ago

          Exactly my point. Most of us customize our setup one way or another, usually. Few of us are ricers in the traditional sense.

      • NorthWestWind@lemmy.world
        81·
        3 days ago

        The idea of suggesting the word “noodles” doesn’t come from a racial point-of-view. I’m using “noodles” to describe the mess of dotfiles, which is like saying “spaghetti code” for poorly written code.

        I guess you can argue it has a race association as the only reason we are coming up with a new word is because the old word is racist.