Meta post I’ve decided to make. I enjoyed the unixporn subreddit a lot when I used reddit more. I enjoy customizing my linux de as much as the next nerd.
But you definitely shouldn’t use racist slang to refer to the process.
To be clear, I didn’t know the origin of the term ‘ricing’ until fairly recently. I was chattimg with my friend and used it to describe my de setup. They informed me that apparently it’s from car customization, and is a pejorative against generally asian men who customize their car to look like a racecar.
After learning this I was sad to realize just how engrained it is in linux de customization culture. I personally have stopped using the term, and I would ask everyone here stop as well.
I’m curious if we have a detailed historic analysis of the origin of the term.
I always figured it came form the “rice burner” mocking for Japanese motorbikes and cars. I figured this was mostly a pick about their relatively low performance. Aside from the “Asians eat rice” source material, is that intended as an insult to Asians in general, or more directed to the design committees at Toyota and Honda-- that they couldn’t design a car capable of burning petrol?
To try a parallel concept: If an x86-64 enthusiast made fun of an ARM chip by saying it was “manufactured on a crumpet substrate” would that be an insult against the British, or more using that it comes from a British firm to provide vocabulary for a product-related insult?
OTOH, I never really saw the term widely used to describe a desktop configuration before here, and it feels weird because of that more than anything else. I’m trying to remember if it was seen in the “PC Case Mod” community circa 2000, because they actually used a fair number of techniques and ideas from the car tuning scene that also used the “ricing” term (lots of cold-cathode lighting and weird 12v accessories)
If you want to do the research be my guest, but I’m telling you right now, I’ve only ever heard the term used to mock an Asian person’s car mods.
There’s you answer. It is disrespect based on ethnicity.
Then you should be fine with not using the term, right? Why are you working so hard to defend a word you claim you don’t see much? You have put all this effort into justifying using a word you have been told several times is racist that apparently other people don’t use according to you.