“F*ck Earth”: Unmasking Mars Colonization Marketing, from Planetary Perceived Obsolescence to Apocalyptic “New Earth” Rhetoric

Abstract

Abstract This article argues that, in promoting Mars colonization, SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s marketing strategies effectively tap into powerful and culturally resonant Christian-inflected, otherworldly, apocalyptic millennial tropes embedded in American culture. SpaceX’s messaging engages in a second-order appropriation of entwined Christian, colonial, frontierist, and imperialist themes that saturate works of astrocolonial science fiction. Musk and many of his followers are devoted fans of these works and draw inspiration from their endemic romanticized, utopian, space expansionist narratives in order to fuel the project of Mars colonization. In deploying popular marketing techniques, such as “manufactured urgency,” “perceived obsolescence,” “scarcity marketing,” “exploding offers,” and “argument dilution,” Musk prophetically stresses the existential urgency of planetary exodus. As Mars gets rebranded as “Earth 2.0,” the strategic use of apocalyptic “Mars as New Earth” visual and verbal rhetoric activates troubling dynamics that effectively legitimize siphoning off Earth’s remaining fragile resources in order to feed the colonial and corporate interests of a technocratic billionaire elite. This article dissects the religio-cultural providential resonances of otherworldly escape and manifest destiny evoked in Mars colonization marketing, while urging public media interventions into that marketing’s grossly misleading messaging.