Have you done your Duolingo lesson today? If you haven’t, unfortunately, the Duolingo owl will no longer be reminding you. Why? Oh, because he’s dead. Duolingo has officially killed off its beloved owl mascot. The company posted a video in which a Tesla Cybertruck is shown hitting the Duolingo owl, named Duo, into the depths of space, followed by a request for help identifying the driver.
Duo has been loved and hated by language learners across the country. His pushiness could be considered annoying, nagging relentlessly about keeping your streak on the app. Numerous memes have been posted online, joking about Duo threatening people to do their lessons. The app’s design is to encourage learning with endless streams of notifications on users’ devices, in addition to posting on X. Duo was an iconic mascot for years, no matter how scary he was. There’s no owl on Earth better qualified to terrify the public into becoming multilingual.
Tualatin High School sophomore McKinnon Hale has been on Duolingo since April 2024, working hard to learn French. She has a 313-day streak and counting. Though Hale is dedicated to the app, she has mixed feelings about Duo’s death.
“I was very surprised about Duo’s death. I think Duo is somewhat creepy and a little weird. Surprisingly, I think I will miss Duo,” she said.
Nathan Jones, another TuHS sophomore, is a little more heartbroken.
“I’ve been doing Duolingo since July of 2023. I am currently learning French and have a 304-day streak. I was shocked and sad about Duo’s death. I love Duo, I even dressed up as him for Halloween. I will miss him. I don’t think X will be the same without him.”
If anyone has information that could help authorities catch the driver of the Cybertruck, Duolingo invites you to speak up. Also, of course, do your Spanish lesson first, unless you’d like to join Duo.
Update: Duo is back! It turns out Duo has been faking his death to get users to do their lessons. The company posted that 50 billion XP points accumulated across the app were needed to bring Duo back, and Duolingo users delivered. Now, Duo has been revived and can continue its work of ‘encouraging’ users to do their lessons.
