Trivia / Duolingo

• Banned in China: Duolingo, among other education apps, was unceremoniously removed from the Xiaomi, Huawei, and 360 app stores (but not iOS) as part of a crackdown on overseas-based edtech. Duolingo has said that it is working on restoring app access.
• Meme Acknowledgment:
  • Many players interpret the daily notifications as Duo, the owl mascot, threatening to harm them if they don't take their lessons. The game's website and official Facebook page acknowledged this in their 2019 April Fool's prank, where they "released" a new feature where Duo would actually go to the player's house to remind them in real life.
  • Duolingo also took the time to acknowledge this meme for Halloween of 2019, depicting Duo as an Evil Overlooker of a church.
  • Then Duolingo teamed up with Angry Birds 2 with the latter providing the two birds teaming up for a bar patron not practicing language.
  • Duolingo's Twitter account posted a picture of Duo with Hooty for the premiere of the first half of the second season of The Owl House, acknowledging the Crack Ship between the two. In Season 3, the Hexsquad are even learning Spanish with a similar Duolingo app that threatens to haunt their nightmares if they don't practice.
  • Up to eleven with their 2021 video "The Unignorable Notification" where flying drones broadcasted notifications onto the sides of buildings showing how many days their learners have missed out on. Duo knows where you live. It finishes off by saying that all it takes is a little "push" and casually asking whether you've done your lesson today.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The official Facebook and Twitter accounts celebrate "Fan Art Friday" every week, showcasing art of the characters created by their users.
• Referenced by...:
  • CG5 released a song called "Duolingo" (in English and Spanish), about how Duo forcing people to do their lessons by kidnapping them and threatening their families.
  • One episode of The Owl House shows the characters learning Spanish from a parody app, with references to Duo's status as a Memetic Psychopath.
  • Saturday Night Live, who did a skit on their November 2, 2019 episode about a version of Duolingo intended to help adults communicate and relate to children. Needless to say, Duolingo found it Actually Pretty Funny, even going so far as to jokingly set up such a course on the subject in their Incubator.
  • Screen Rant Pitch Meetings: According to the Screenwriter of Power Rangers (2017), Rita Repulsa knows English despite being dormant for 65 million years because whenever she's offscreen, she's using the Duolingo app.
• Schedule Slip: The upcoming courses are infamous for getting postponed.

---