Car Enthusiasts, Ricers, and How we're the Bullies. #blogpost by BoaBlogs

05 Jun 2016

Car lover or not, you know of these futile people/cars, us car enthusiasts like to refer to as, “ricers”. In short, ricing is the act of over modification of cosmetic enhancements, or giving your car stupidly horrible exterior and/or interior enhancements. I can guarantee that anybody who had ever lived has seen (or most likely heard) a riced car. Ironically, ricers are the topic of today’s discussion.

I previously turned 16; meaning I’d soon be on the road, making a menace of society with my novice driving skills. Because I believe myself to be a cultured car enthusiast, I would most likely try not to rice out my first car: a 2006 Toyota Camry, AKA “The Silver Turd”. This made me think. After all the catalog experience that I personally have with ricers, I’ve noted that at least 3/4ths of the ricers that I am able to distinguish, were below the ages of 20. Ambiguous information, but it provides a basis of some form of evidence. So, I’ve found that most new ricers are ‘kids’ when it comes to driving. Immature ‘children’ who don’t know how to modify cars properly. You know what kids don’t have, though`? Money.

It is basically known throughout the automobile world, that ricing your car is done with little-to-no money. For example, YouTube, is absolutely riddled with tutorials and videos for cheap, effective ways to rice-out your car. Hell, even the materials used to rice cars are cheap, fishing in willing children to feed on their cheap parts. I can willingly say that I’ve conceptualized many a time of ricing out my Camry. The thought through my head were very scattered, consisting of, “Who cares, I’m 16! This is what you’re supposed to do to your first car!” to “Dear God! What in the name of crap do you think you’re doing?” These thoughts are what compel me to want to rice my car. And then I thought about something.

In my personal opinion, there is nothing I hate more than a car poser. A car poser is somebody who pretends to know things about cars, and tries to show it off to other real car enthusiasts. A car poser is also somebody who says they like cars, but don’t put the time and effort into learning about them, as other car enthusiasts do. Which made me think. What defines a car enthusiast? All my life, I’ve thought of a car enthusiast as somebody who is completely influenced, characterized, and devoted to automobiles. Somebody who is nothing without cars, and lives by their fictional code as long as they will live. Yet, turns out I’ve been completely wrong about these measly peasants. After some quick research, I figured out that the word, “enthusiast”, was a word meant to describe someone who is interested in something. All my life, I’ve conceptualized this word completely mal-significantly. In dictionary terms, a car enthusiast, is just somebody that likes cars. To myself, I thought of the mistakes I’ve made about this definition, and how many friends I’ve ridiculed on the basis of misusing the definition. Ever yet, this still remains touchy subject for me; in the fact that car posers are still out there, making a muck of forums everywhere.

Back to ricers - I have a pretty good friend named Danny. Danny is also a car enthusiast, along with being an all around good hearted person. My favorite thing about Danny, though, isn’t his good heart. It’s his father’s car; a 1987 Honda Civic Si. Looking at it, you see nothing out of the ordinary of a ricer-spec car- An ugly, baby blue topcoat with royal blue tribal marks, a complete eBay body-kit, and (you guessed it) Lambo doors. Yep. I have to admit, as timelessness and swagger the Fourth generation Civic, Danny’s father still had the decency to completely murder the automobile. Under the hood though, is a different story. The classic take of an ugly face, and an incredible personality. Under the hood, lies a B18C5 (Integra Type R engine, otherwise known as a GSR) with a 70+millimeter turbo, complete with N2O and E85, making 700 to the squealers. I realized, I love the car. Not because of it’s extravagantly offensive mug, but because of it’s enthralling personality. It also subtly reminds me of the ‘Fast and Furious’ era of cars, where almost every car had underglow and a wing. Yet, with all this ugliness, came the great performance and fell of the car.

Here I am, a 16 year old blogpost author on Car Throttle. As stated previously, I do deem myself as a cultured car enthusiast. So, ricing my Camry would be completely overruled in my rice-hating head. I thought about ricers even more, and how much we ridicule them for how their car looks. Previously, I noted that ricing your car is cheap, and easy. Let me refer to the average Supra owner. It’s pretty safe to say that at least 9/10 Supra’s on the road have at least 600+hp. It is also pretty safe to say, that this power doesn’t come cheaply. For those who aren’t uber-rich or don’t have daddy’s money to spend on a car, ricing is pretty much the only option f you don’t want to shovel money into your dream car. And that’s the secret behind car enthusiasts. All my life, I’ve lived up to the wrong definition of car enthusiasts. Only now, am I realizing that everyone who says that they like cars, really DO like cars. It is just that they are sprawling at a different rate than more avid car guys/girls. The sad thing, though, is that most of the car guys out there can’t afford their Supra’s or Skylines or M3’s, get made fun of by the guys with the Supra’s or Skylines or M3’s. In essence, more cultured car guys like to hate on the lesser guys, such as the guys with a 5th gen Civic sedan D series with a park bench wing, just because their car is lesser than theirs, or because their ricy-ness levels are over 9000. Thinking about it, this ricer bullying epidemic can be related to many other real life situations. For example, they preppy kids with the Vineyard Vines and Abercrombie make fun of the lesser fortunate kids because they’re wearing Fubu The kids with the Jordans are making fun of the guy with the off-brand Adidas. The sad thing, though, is that the kid with the off-brand Adidas, likes shoes as much as the kid with the new Jordan. And I also do fully admit that some of the “ricer” builds may be completely over the top and boisterous in many many ways, but the message is still the same. So please, stop the harassment of the lesser, and mind your own business you gd* daddy’s boy.

-BoaBlogs