On the sad day of Feb 11, Duolingo announced that its beloved and famously annoying owl mascot Duo was dead. They said the owl died waiting for app users to do their lessons and asked for fans to share their credit card numbers so they can be automatically signed up for Duolingo Max. Memes were created online to remember the departed owl, some fans deleted the app, and others lost their streak in memory for the creepy owl. Fans everywhere mourned and came together to celebrate the life that was lost, or so people thought was lost.
As of Feb 25, it was revealed that Duo had faked his death in a media stunt in order to test if fans truly cared about him and to get them to do their lessons. The stunt also was a test to see which country cared most for the bird in terms of experience points (XP) in a campaign launched to bring Duo back. The top three performing countries, according to the Bring Back Duolingo website, was the United States, Germany, and Brazil. The campaign was set with the goal of 50 billion XP and had users complete dozens of quests in order to bring him back. Even major game companies like Just Dance, Dying Light, and Hitman teased and remembered the green internet personality.
When the duped death was announced online, Duolingo quickly repeated that the owl was fatally struck by a Tesla Cybertruck and fans theorize on who killed him. They pointed fingers are fans who got threatened for not completing their lessons and his love interest, Dua Lipa. However, Dua Lipa posted “Till death duo part” on X, formerly known as Twitter. Which has led fans to believe she wasn’t involved in his supposed ‘death’ at the time. When fans believed it was his co-workers that killed him (Falstaff, Zari, and Lily), he had them fake their deaths too. But do not worry, everyone is alive and well.
All this media attention and massive uptick in users doing their lessons and using the app to learn new languages has posed the question if Duolingo is actually beneficial for those who use it. Madame Cooper, a World Language Instructor at Wharton High, was asked if she felt Duolingo was a helpful app for students. She replied, “Absolutely! Duolingo makes learning languages fun and allows students to move at a pace that they are most comfortable with.” She noted that she includes ‘Duolingo Classroom’ into her classroom curriculum and that students were overjoyed with the ability to self-pace and compete for the highest XP points. Another World Language Instructor, Marilyn Hernandez, was asked the same questions and responded with, “Yes, I find that Duolingo is a great resource in addition to a language class” and “I love Duolingo, I’ve used it to learn and reinforce different languages that I myself am learning.” Both instructors are pro Duolingo and believe they are helpful to students looking to learn new languages.