A red car blasting David Bowie as it floats around the Earth has become a real bee in the bonnet for the Flat Earth community.To fill you in on why these cosmographically confused folks are scrambling, on Tuesday SpaceXâthe private aerospace manufacturer and space transport founded and run by Elon Muskâsuccessfully launched and landed Falcon Heavy, which was dubbed the most powerful operational reusable rocket in the world. The Falconâs payload was a red Tesla roadster playing an infinite loop of Space Oddity with a dummy in it, which then floated around the Earthâits final destination is Mars.
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The Teslaâs time in the void was live streamed and people quickly used the opportunity to dunk on Flat Earthers. Twitter even made a moment called âDid Elon Musk just shut down the Flat Earth conspiracy?â (Quick tip: the answer to the question is no, Eratosthenes did that like 2,000 years ago.)Both the non-stop dunking and the clear view of a round Earth understandably peeved off those who adhere to the wisdom of Kyrie Irving. Some are saying that the stunt was actually made to distract people from the fact that Tesla filed their biggest ever quarterly loss recently; others are saying itâs all part of an evil Illuminati plan. Some say that the entire production was computer generated while others are of the belief that it was filmed in a studio a la the moon landing.
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Now, to be completely candid, the Flat Earth community is a hard one to pin down and report on because of all the trolls who co-exist side-by-side with the true believers. To exacerbate the matter, many of the trolls tend to write in a similar cadence as the zealots in order to push them further down the rabbit hole for, and Iâm assuming here, lulz. That said, this is a community that one can safely assume adheres strongly to Poeâs Lawâthe idea that it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views without someone believing them.
Like many other, shall we say, niche communities, Flat-Earthers have found a home on YouTube and have created video after video âdebunkingâ the launch. In one incredibly perplexing video that has 20,000 views, the commentator connects the Eagles winning the Super Bowl to the âflight of the falcon,â relates the term Saturn to Satan, says the rocket is shaped like a Satanic âpenis,â sees Illuminati pyramids in the roadster, and uses the fact that the video was shot on a fisheye lens as proof itâs a fake.Musician and newly converted Flat Earther Delano Edwards, who has half a million followers on YouTube, made a video called âFLAT EARTH PROOF (ELON MUSK SPACEX FALCON HEAVY WAS FAKE)!!!!â and lays out several points like âwhere the fuck the stars at?â âwhy ainât it spinninâ?â and âwhere the fuck the satellites at?ââYou make billions of dollars every fucking year and this is the best shit you can come up with? From us being Flat-Earthers at least let us say âwell you did a good job this time,â I can do better than this with five dollars and the green screen I got,â says Edwards.
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âYou gotta be a retarded person to believe that this shit is real. Wake the fuck up.âItâs not just the YouTube Flat Earthers who are getting cranky over the stunt. On the Flat Earth Society forum several of the topics of conversation are all related to the SpaceX launch. One of them goes for a ridiculous 150 messages with the posters bitching about Musk and putting their heads together to try and prove how the launch was either fake or actually proves Flat Earth theory.There are users in the forum pushing back on the Flat Earthers, who are then disparaged by the true believers as âmuskbots.â Like all online activity, most of the threads quickly turn into flame wars.
âCursing Elon, gimme a break. We are laughing at you and the Elon fanboys. I think (it) is funny that you boys believe that his Tesla is flying in space,â reads one such message written by a user named Hoppy. âYou are so brainwashed that you believe anything NASA tells you, and now you believe Elon. It is pitiful and funny at the same time.âIndeed, all the Flat Earth theories, arguments, and ways of spreading them vary greatly but, there was one unifying pointâother than that it was fakeâmade at least once in every video and forum thread, it was the fact that Bowie fucking rules.At the end of the day, you know what, itâs nice to know we can all agree on something.Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.