With 97.6 million monthly active users, Duolingo is the most popular language-learning platform on the internet. It's a distinct brand with a playful image, bold marketing, and a mascot that has become notorious for guilt-tripping you into completing your lessons.
Adding to the fun, people even created the subreddit r/duolingomemes to share jokes about their adventures on the app. So join us and dive into weird sentences, threatening reminders, and the sense of accomplishment that comes as soon as you register.
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Intruder Alert
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Once you start Duolingo, you can never stop unless the owl says so . . .
Even though Duolingo memes have been flowing around the internet for years now, Duo's recent redesign, which gave the mascot a more intense and assertive personality, has led to an even greater influx of humorous content and creative posts from users.
"As our TikTok was starting to take off, our social media, community content, and campaigns [were still] pretty separate," says the company's senior global social media manager Zaria Parvez.
"It took about a year to start making our campaigns social-first and our mantra for 2023 has been about shifting our whole marketing strategy to being social-first."
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"Our first success wasn't actually creating video content ... it was from commenting on other people’s videos," Parvez adds. "Those comments ended up becoming almost like the new push notification for Duolingo. Everyone started seeing Duo pop up everywhere."
People really liked it, so their strategy was to work backward from that. "It was honestly all very scrappy at the start – just taking moments of inspiration from knowing the platform, being social-first, and existing in culture. It's that mentality which really built these videos and 'CAP,' our first viral hit, happened pretty soon after that."
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Parvez says that nobody can plan virality, but you can plan a mentality that prioritizes it. "Our openness to being scrappy and experimenting [is] what has set us apart."
"Everyone has the mindset [that] if we want to go viral, we have to make it happen fast. That's the key to consistency, setting a mentality, and becoming mission-driven," she notes.
F**k That’s Brutal
You Are Correct
You Are Already Dead
The social media manager says there was some initial pushback within the company here and there from people who weren't completely onboard with the new voice. After all, it was pretty much a new grad coming in and saying, "Hey, this is exactly how we're changing and revolutionizing everything" to someone who has been working in the industry for over a decade. But she says people became receptive as they started to see the impact of it.
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I Waited So Long To Make This Meme
Duolingo Is Superior Tho
What Is The Duolingo Owl Planning
Lost In Translation
Obviously written by someone who does not have duolingo. Mine is currently *checks phone* cleaning its knife with its tears.
Should I Be Scared?
Thank You Duolingo
No Reason To Miss Today's Lesson
Woah Woah Woah There Duolingo, I'm Just Trying To Learn German
Language Bird Is Crying
Duolingo has gotten very creative when it comes to their threats.
Uh Oh
Note: this post originally had 81 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
You know I was thinking about downloading Duolingo to learn german, but i think I enjoy having alive and not mentally scarred family members,
Duolingo does have some funky sentences, but it has helped me learn new words. I’ve been in a German immersion program for 10 years and Duolingo helped me learn feminine, masculine, and neutral words recently… so better late than never, I guess?
I personally think Drops is way more effective at teaching vocabulary. And it doesn't threaten me on the reg
You know I was thinking about downloading Duolingo to learn german, but i think I enjoy having alive and not mentally scarred family members,
Duolingo does have some funky sentences, but it has helped me learn new words. I’ve been in a German immersion program for 10 years and Duolingo helped me learn feminine, masculine, and neutral words recently… so better late than never, I guess?
I personally think Drops is way more effective at teaching vocabulary. And it doesn't threaten me on the reg
