Rice is definitely an attitude. And as drdisque quite rightly put it "It is the attitude that how much attention your car gets is more important than how well it actually works."
For example, IMO, if you get a WRX up to 500bhp without strengthening the drivetrain, that's rice!
Then again, I happily call my car a rice burner because it creates power from not very much...most jap cars are rice burners. You either like 'em or you don't.
As for giant wings and ugly paint jobs...I think we have to start disassociating it from everything and just call it shit.