“You made Duo sad.”
Duo is a bright green, cheerful animated owl that serves as the mascot for Duolingo, a language-learning app with more than 42 million active users. The bird is meant to be a symbol of encouragement, aiding users in their language studies.
But underneath this innocent persona lies a more sinister beast: Evil Duo.
Despite his happy appearance, memes have been made about the owl being violent, and that he will go to such drastic measures as kidnapping your family if you don’t complete your daily language lesson.
It all started in March 2019 when Duolingo posted a picture on Twitter of the owl in a dimly lit doorway with the words “COMING SOON.”
While Evil Duo originated on Twitter, the jokes were taken even further due to the app itself, which sends numerous seemingly passive aggressive notifications to users who are inactive for too long.
Since the ominous tweet, fans have spread this meme, with multiple accounts dedicated to Duo in all his evilness. What started as innocent jokes about the mascot have turned into violent depictions of the owl coming after users’ families.
How did Duolingo react? They fully embraced it.
One Duolingo TikTok shows fake texts received by Duo’s lawyer from the owl.
“So what if people wanna see their families?” asks Duo. “It’s not my fault people don’t want to do their daily lessons.”
The video was met with extremely positive feedback, with fans even joining in on the joke in the comments, begging Duo to return their families.
Evil Duo is genius. This new persona not only creates memes that have increased the popularity of the app, but also created an inside joke for the Duolingo community.
Duolingo’s TikTok has garnered 3.2 million followers since its inception, with over 61.6 million total likes. The common theme in every video? Each features Duo the Owl.
While the brand has shifted to other types of content, every video now showcases Duo. The company’s TikTok now presents him as an obsessive Dua Lipa fan, but every few videos reminds viewers of the owl’s threats to inactive users.
Despite the shift away from Evil Duo, the brand’s original reaction to the memes has led to an entire marketing image revolving entirely around their mascot, and it has worked tremendously well for them.
With an app that is largely targeted towards Millennials and Gen-Z, Duolingo made the right decision by being self-aware and promoting Evil Duo as the face of their brand. After all, what’s more motivating than an owl out for vengeance?
What’s most impressive is Duolingo’s willingness to change — Evil Duo turned into Dua Lipa stan Duo, and when trends change, Duo will surely change with them.
Companies should learn from Duolingo and embrace the jokes made about them, even if they might initially seem negative, and be willing to change with the trends.
And yes — I will do my daily Spanish lessons out of fear of being hunted down by the unforgiving green mascot.
