• rozodru@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    you know the Fast and the Furious movies? at least the original 2 or 3, those cars were all tricked out with neon lights, decals, nitros, custom exhaust, all that? most of those cars were Japanese cars that were heavily modified. Basically it was a derogetory term for modifying a piece of shit car to look good, Especally if it was a Japanese car. you slap a body kit on it, neon lights, slap in some bucket seats, switch out the exhaust, but you dont’ touch the engine. that’s a “Ricer” it’s not a good thing in that specific car culture.

    So for whatever reason someone at some point was modifying their Desktop Environment or Window Manager with neon borders and all that and decided to call it a Rice. You’re essentially modifying your OS without touching the “engine” so to speak. You’re just slapping a body kit, neon lights, some bucket seats etc onto your operating system.

    • Samsy@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Read the same in the past. If I remember correctly, someone added “Ricer” and “Rice” is racism, too.

      • rozodru@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        yeah some consider it a racist term because it originally applied specifically to Japanese Cars. i.e. Asian cars, Asians like eating Rice, POS modified Car isn’t a “Racer” it’s a “Ricer”.

        • kadaverin0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          17 hours ago

          I once had to explain to my father why calling Asian sport bikes “rice rockets” is racist. He didn’t get it and went on to talk about how he got “gyped” by a guy trying to sell him one when he was in his 30s.

          • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
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            13 hours ago

            It takes a lot of introspection and work to get past culturally ingrained bigotry. I was a teenager in the 90s. Back then, and still through the 2000’s via internet culture, everyone and everything was a “fag”. I didn’t recognize that it was a problem until way later than I should have, and I still almost say it sometimes. I don’t have any problem with gay people. It’s just a weird form of muscle memory. People don’t understand that listeners don’t know what their intentions are. They just know what you said. You gotta internalize that fact before you can change your language.

          • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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            14 hours ago

            It’s one of those things, is it worse that it’s used without understanding that it was initially a racist term?

            • kadaverin0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              14 hours ago

              Good question. It was the late 90s so it wasn’t like we were living in Jim Crow but there was no where near the same amount of recognition of the difficulties people of color face like we see now. He never intentionally racist. On the contrary, I do remember him spending a night in the drunk tank after got into a parking lot brawl between him and Puerto Rican friends and some assholes who called them a bunch of slurs.