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.

  • motherfucker [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Getting people acclimated to obeying authority by starting with menial commands is a real thing. For it to work, the person doing it needs to have some authority and the commands actually have to be things that the other person won’t object to. Do these people have authority over you? Does changing how you talk about Unix desktops seems like a reasonable command to start that process?

    Now, I have no problem with viewing random strangers as authority figures if that’s what you’re into, but it seems a lot more likely that you’ve used this idea of compelled-language-as-social-control as a thought-terminating cliche to justify not thinking about why someone might care about randos online using the word “ricing”. And to be fair, it seems like a weird use a mental energy if the point is to assert dominance, but at the same time, you’re the one engaging with it, so what does that say about you?