Film Theory: Duolingo LORE Exists... And It's Actually Creepy!

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Thank you to Duolingo for sponsoring this video! Download the Duolingo app here: https://app.adjust.com/1m65f902   *🤫 Subscribe or vanish!* ► https://www.youtube.com/@FilmTheory/?sub_confirmation=1  Wait…Duolingo has LORE?! After many requests from the community, we are FINALLY taking a deep dive into how this language learning app and its owl mascot may not be as innocent as it appears. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ *Credits:* Writers: Forrest Lee, Bob Chipman, Brett Turley  Editors: Alex "Sedge" Sedgwick, Danial "BanditRants" Keristoufi, Tyler Mascola Sound Designer: Yosi Berman Thumbnail: DasGnomo ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Need Royalty Free Music for your Content? Try Epidemic Sound. Get Your 30 Day Free Trial Now ► http://share.epidemicsound.com/TheFilmTheorists ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ #Duolingo #LanguageLearning #Language #Theory #FilmTheory

Transcript

00:00Duolingo has a lore wait wait hold on Duolingo has lore like the language learning app

00:06Yeah, you heard that right and this cute little owl is doing more than kidnapping people and breaking knees to get you to learn Portuguese

00:12Not his endgame saving the world

00:19Hello Internet's welcome to film theory the show where you're a theorist or you fear us

00:23So normally this is where I'd ask you guys if you'd heard of the subject of today's theory Duolingo

00:29But honestly, I'm almost certain you have because this theory has been requested for months

00:34Yeah

00:35And our comments and on the subreddit you loyal theorists have been asking us to look into the lore of this app and y'all

00:40Delivered because of your recommendations

00:42We've actually been kicking around to this theory for a while now trying to find the best way to approach it

00:47And I mean with their mascot duo faking his death in February trying to get people to do more of their lessons now is a better

00:53Time than ever to dive into the story

00:55They've been building over there and best of all

00:56Duolingo themselves actually reached out and asked us if we wanted to partner and sponsor a video and with everything going on the timing could

01:03Not be more perfect

01:04If you somehow don't know Duolingo is a language learning app that helps you learn different languages at your own pace

01:10Whether you're a complete noob someone who's taken years of classes or a fluent speaker

01:15Duolingo's courses offer something to help you learn or just sharpen your skills and their language variety is

01:20Huge you can learn everything from German to Arabic to Japanese to Hawaiian

01:25They even have courses for Klingon for all us fantasy and sci-fi nerds out there so statage now all of that

01:31It's great cool awesome even but the longer you use the app the more you realize that its little characters are well

01:38Actual characters through its interactive features like stories and radio you realize that they have names

01:44Backstories loves hate streams and fears

01:47But none have more character or story than Duolingo's main mascot duo the owl

01:52Yeah

01:53If you haven't seen duo has become something of a meme in recent years bothering learners through push notifications

01:59Phone widgets desperately trying to get your attention and chest off the wall marketing. Hi duo again. Mr. Korean lesson know what happens now

02:07Yeah

02:12Yeah, duo is very passionate about making sure you do your lessons no matter what but now as of the writing of this theory

02:19Duolingo has announced that duo the owl has passed away probably quote waiting for you to do your lessons to the sadness of the internet

02:26Pop singer Dua Lipa and master chief from Halo. Yes, really by the time this video is out. He'll have miraculously come back

02:33I'm sure and please forgive me

02:35It takes us weeks to actually make videos

02:36But I wanted to take this opportunity to finally dive into the lore of Duolingo and what I found. Well, it's absolutely

02:44Mind-blowing. Let's just say that all of the increasingly crazy stunts and desperation for you to learn your languages might be because duo sees a

02:51Dark future for us and he's trying to save the world

02:54Take five minutes to do your language lesson loyal theorists and let's talk this one through

02:59So to start out with let's go over the baseline universe here in the Duolingo app

03:03Because like I mentioned at the top of the episode

03:05There's a whole world of characters in here now when diving into the actual lore the best way to start was by jumping into the app

03:12Itself and thankfully there are features that really give us insights into the characters and a lot of it is just really cute

03:18for instance

03:18Some of the Duolingo radio segments have us listening to podcast interviews between some of the characters and one of them was about watching movies

03:25With family Kevin tell us about watching movies with your grandma, you know

03:29We just love to hear that here on film theory elsewhere in these stories segments of the app

03:33We see little storylines involving the characters play out including one with the jock Eddie going on a date

03:38Only to realize that he completely misread the situation. Do you always talk about work so much on a first date?

03:45This isn't a date. It's a job interview in case you were wondering Eddie did not get the job

03:51So can I have the job definitely not that's rough buddy. So what can we glean from all of this?

03:57Well, first off we realize that each of the characters here helping you learn to say things like yes

04:01We own chat actually have names

04:04Relationships and interests besides the mascot duo the owl you have the unenthused Lily and her best friend

04:10Zari both of whom go to a school where Oscar teaches art and Eddie teaches Jim Eddie has a son named Junior and they

04:16Actually live in the same apartment building as Zari and their friend Vikram

04:19Then there are the best friends B and Lynn Lynn's grandmother Lucy and my personal favorite character Falstaff the talking bear

04:26He wears a scarf. I would die for him

04:29There's a bunch of small stuff hidden in these stories that create a world here in the Duolingo verse

04:34Junior owns a pet fish and parrot and has a crush on Lily Lily really likes pirates and is allergic to horses

04:39Zari loves cats, but is afraid of parrots and spiders that sort of thing. It's fun

04:44I'm not much about Falstaff the bear though, other than the fact that he loves snacks

04:48But I mean that's just hashtag relatable

04:50Anyway, these many storylines continue out to other parts of Duolingo's marketing like their YouTube channel

04:56Today on Lily's terrifying experiments and social awkwardness. It's

05:02Yeah, if you head over to their YouTube

05:04You'll find a series of animated shorts featuring each of the main Duolingo characters teaching you quirks and factoids about

05:11Communicating in other languages and cultures. They're fun

05:13But if you browse through the other videos on this page, you'll start seeing well the videos start getting stranger and stranger

05:20There are trailers for parody TV shows

05:22Duo's kitchen. It's either speak Italian

05:26Or get chopped like scallions. That is a sharp knife chef or a parody anime intro called lost in translation

05:36Or up to our lo-fi livestream, huh, that's a that's a great idea, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah

05:41Okay

05:42This is really the green feathered elephant in the room when you're talking about Duolingo lore and why everyone was so keen on us

05:48Covering this stuff if you somehow haven't seen it yet

05:50The Duolingo mascot duo the owl is pretty much a viral megastar at this point all because of crazy videos like this

06:10If you go and look the story for Duolingo involving their beloved mascot duo the owl has become

06:16Eye-catching is a word unhinged is another but certainly effective and this is what prompted everyone to ask us to cover the series

06:24But the more I dug into it the more I realized that duo didn't become this unsettling force of nature overnight

06:29No, this has been a long time coming and we just didn't see it early on duo was a very chill, dude

06:35He was more of an encouraging

06:37Enthusiastic coach than anything else cheering on and guiding learners to complete their daily Duolingo lessons

06:43So how did duo start a descent into darkness?

06:46Well, according to Duolingo's chief design officer Ryan Sims

06:49The number one thing duo wants most in the entire world is for you to do your lesson today

06:54And the longer and longer duo felt this way the more passionately and seriously

06:59He took it like if you add the Duolingo widget to your phone home screen duo will start the day pretty chill

07:04But the longer and longer you wait and the closer and closer to midnight it gets more stressed and desperate duo becomes thanks to push

07:12Notifications duo was able to remind learners to do their lessons

07:15But if you've lapsed on your lessons or missed a few he started guilt-tripping you sending emails with him crying to the inboxes of his

07:22Lost students and if you completely fell off he'd send another notification

07:26Stating simply these reminders don't seem to be working the message from duo was clear if you stopped learning

07:32Not only are you a quitter but your actions really hurt his feelings now first off

07:36I think this is hilarious

07:38And it definitely got a conversation around the app started and to play devil's advocate for duo the owl here

07:43Languages are really hard to learn without consistent practice and while guilt-tripping might not be the best long-term strategy

07:50It is effective for getting short-term results and more or less

07:54It did work and it eventually became a bit of a meme which duo embraced wholeheartedly

07:59Changing his future forever in an animation called duos day at work were shown a typical workday for duo the owl

08:06Normally, he's tirelessly texting friendly reminders to learners all over the globe and suddenly a lot of what we actually see in the app makes

08:14Way more sense like some of the exercises encourage us by saying we advise you to use duo lingo every day that checks out

08:21If it's duo the owl as the one poking us to continue our streaks and sending these messages out, right?

08:26Though some of these also get a bit too honest like the green owl is trying to come up with some new sentences least

08:31He's being honest. Anyway, when they ignore him and refuse to ignite their streaks

08:35Well, he has to try something different and instead he dons a giant duo mech costume to go out into the real world

08:42Yes, that is a thing that actually happens in this marketing

08:45We see the results of this in an April Fool's 2019 ad for a fake feature called duo lingo push

08:50Which I mean just just watch this

08:52Since duo lingo can be used wherever you are now duo lingo push can remind you wherever you are

08:58Yeah, this feature would allow duo to stalk and annoy users who tried to put off their studies no matter where they were work

09:04The gym on a date not exactly the wingman. I'm looking for my guy, but this is just the beginning

09:10He would soon monitor his learners even more closely flying drones in front of the homes of lapsed learners and projecting

09:17Unignorable notifications on their buildings when the menacing seemed to wear off and people started ignoring him again

09:22Duo took a cue from read from angry birds. Yes those angry birds

09:26I guess birds of a feather do flock together and began having vivid fantasies about threatening people who ignored his notifications

09:33Though in reality, he was just slamming a bowl of peanuts onto the ground. That's admittedly not groundbreaking terror

09:39But there's clearly the beginning of an escalation here along with his psychological warfare

09:44Duo is starting to think about using physical violence to force people to learn languages

09:48These frustrations also started coming through in the actual exercises of the app as well

09:53Yeah

09:53Some of the phrases spoken to learners during duo lingos basic listening and reading comprehension

09:58exercises on the learning path were things like I hate everybody and you in particular to live is to suffer and I

10:06Cry and think about sad things sometimes even phrases like duo used to love me

10:12Clearly this was duo trying to communicate his sadness and frustration with listeners

10:16But to no avail because he takes things to the next level shortly after this by March of 2022 people started

10:23Disappearing in a purely fictional sense, of course

10:26And there was only one person to blame duo the owl have even physically or emotionally injured by duo lingo

10:35And even worse he was stealing funko pops duo took my family next he took my funko pop collection true horror

10:43This is also the first place where a lot of duos comical threats appeared including Japanese or broken knees Latin or be flattened and of

10:50course

10:51Spanish or Vanish all of this carries the hilarious implication that the language you decide to learn will determine your punishment in the eyes of

10:58Duo should you fall off?

10:59anyways

11:00so many people and action figures had been harassed or just straight-up disappeared that the

11:04Fictional bluffer and Minchetti and sons began a crusade against duo the owl though duo lingo themselves called these claims lies and false

11:12Information and that they were filing a cease-and-desist order against the law firm most importantly though

11:17Do lingo says you should definitely not call the phone number from this ad text or call Minchetti and sons now at seven eight one

11:24Stop. Oh, yep. Do not under any circumstances call that number, but I mean, come on

11:30You know, we had to call that number and sadly it's no longer active

11:34But other people had the same idea and called it ages ago playing a silly voice message that ultimately just led back to the duo

11:40Lingo website have to say seems suspicious almost like duo somehow got a hold of these people and it was redirecting hate

11:47But sadly that's where this particular thread ends now at this point a lot of the story starts repeating itself

11:52Duo wants more people to keep up their streaks and learn their languages and resorts to increasingly unhinged ways of getting attention

11:59He started a campaign to win pop star Dua Lipa's affections

12:03Befriended Hootie from the owl house to maximize his star power watched the pink carpet at the Barbie movie premiere produced a parody Netflix style

12:10reality show called love language partnered with squid game to kidnap lapsed learners and revealed during the

12:162024 Super Bowl that he had a BBL. Yes, the Duolingo owl canonically has a Brazilian butt lift

12:21If you don't know what that is ask your parents

12:24He also started getting more out of pocket with the actual content in the Duolingo app sending out challenges that started toying around with

12:31His darker interests like how well he started to warn learners that there's a man with a knife behind the curtain and early

12:39Tomorrow morning. I will be at your door, which surely had more than a few people looking over their shoulders

12:45He even admitted to crimes confessing. I can be a bad boy. Oh, they're duo

12:50You might want to keep that to yourself

12:51But the single biggest push duo has been making during his crusade against Duolingo dropouts using music to reach out to them and that makes

12:59sense

13:00psychologists and

13:01Anthropologists believe that music is a complex yet approachable way that societies pass on their cultures and that music can shape the world on both

13:08An individual and societal level so using music as a way to get people interested in language

13:14That's absolutely a valid strategy though

13:17Do's approach has been well uniquely threatening and this whole part of the saga started with the introduction of Duolingo on ice

13:24And its biggest hit Spanish or vanish

13:29And just a quick aside, but the song has the lyric

13:33Which translates to I love human flesh

13:37I think do is out for a little bit more than just blood at this point

13:40Anyway, this was just the beginning of do as adventures with music if you dive deep onto the seed geek website

13:45This fictional musical actually has a full page detailing his entire set list of threats gotta say

13:51I'm partial to Portuguese or the authorities and you've mama'd your last Mia myself and several additional songs were also released on

13:58Spotify including the Hamilton inspired French or the Trench and

14:01Oh, geez

14:03Okay, I'll try. Um, it's been I'm Hans Schoen

14:07Hans Schoen

14:09Schoen a ball werfer. Yeah, there's no way there's no way. It's been an Hans Schoen a ball werfer

14:15That's the German word for people who need gloves to make snowballs

14:19And it's basically just slang for coward and also just to keep up the snowy theme

14:22But do even released a freaking Christmas album. You gotta love it

14:26So that's a lot duo is now keeping an eye on his learners through push notifications on their phones through drones flying through cities by

14:34Stalking them in the streets and now with some irresistibly catchy music

14:37But why what could possibly be the reason for duo to head down this darker path that we followed here today becoming more and more

14:45Nefarious in his antics honestly what we've seen here makes him seem way more like a villain than the antihero

14:50He's claimed to be so what's his motivation? Why is he doing all of this?

14:55Well, it comes down to one simple thing when you look at what duo actually is it explains everything

15:02See while duo the owl is well an owl

15:05He shares a lot in common with another real-world animal the kakapo aka the owl parrot

15:11This is a bird from New Zealand that also happens to be one of the most endangered birds in the world

15:15And I mean just look at this guy. He looks exactly like duo

15:19They're both round fluffy green birds with cute little legs and tiny wings

15:24Even the little lining around their faces is basically the same but their similarities go further than just the visual

15:30See the kakapo is a flightless bird best

15:32They can do is glide short distances, which as we all know is just falling with style and duo

15:38Well, he struggles in that department too within the Duolingo app. You'll rarely see duo airborne

15:43He's much more about jumping or gliding what you will see from him

15:47However is great difficulty getting his wings to support his weight just like a kakapo

15:52So, okay, do what was a kakapo owl parrots? Why does that matter? Well, here's where things get interesting

15:59See, this is a pretty broad overview

16:01but the kakapo is a figure in the folklore of the Maori the native people of New Zealand and according to that folklore the

16:07Kakapo is believed to have a supernatural foresight into the future

16:11This belief stems from the kakapo only mating when the Rimu tree fruited an event that only happens once every four years or so

16:18The idea is that the kakapo could literally see the future and know when the trees were going to fruit

16:23And knew when it was time to well you get it

16:25And if you want even more proof that duo the owl is actually a kakapo with these foresight powers

16:30This actually really happened to me in real life

16:33But I myself got an unprompted email from Duolingo encouraging me to continue my streak

16:39Foreseeing that I would hit a 14-day streak

16:42I mean come on

16:43But now knowing this if duo is an endangered owl parrot with latent psychic abilities

16:50Suddenly everything makes way more sense

16:53Why would duo be doing all of these heinous things Spanish or Vanish Korean or not be seen French or the trench?

17:00He's desperately trying to get people to learn languages because he knows something we don't

17:05He sees something awful coming with his foresight and wants to avoid it a dystopian future where humanity doesn't talk to each other anymore

17:12And I mean just look around every day

17:16It feels like society is shifting further and further into isolation echo chambers have trapped us and global communication is breaking down

17:23He's even tried to straight-up warn us about what he sees going on in the world in the app in other

17:29Exercises on the learning path

17:30He's told us that the government of the country is not very effective at the moment and today

17:36There is no good news in the newspaper and worse still why is the government giving so much false information to the public?

17:44Remember according to the duo's day-at-work animation duo is canonically the one sending out these translations

17:49He's the one sending these warnings because he's almost certainly seen this exact thing happened before

17:55After he died an in-memoriam post from Duolingo social media accounts revealed that duo was born over

18:023,000 years ago in the year 1000 BC that in and of itself was a bit of a curveball

18:07But that means that he's witnessed the rise and fall of numerous

18:11Civilizations the Egyptians the Romans the Mayans and he doesn't want to see it happen again

18:17And the solution is painfully simple if we learn new languages if we take the effort to communicate

18:23And learn about foreign cultures

18:25Expanding our horizons with new words and ideas and concepts that teaches us so much more than just how to say

18:31I want sushi in Japanese that helps us grow as people and become closer together and it is

18:37Working we see this through the characters inside of the Duolingo verse like check this out if we go back to the Duolingo YouTube page

18:44You'll find some videos like I hate Christmas which features the character Lily talking about how much she well hates Christmas

18:53Oh

18:57That doesn't particularly sound like someone who enjoys to communicate let alone go outside

19:02And yet Lily is all about talking to us in the Duolingo app where you can literally call her to help practice your languages

19:09With the call with Lily feature

19:10She is literally connecting with you to help you learn about other people's and cultures and languages

19:17And that right there is ultimately do-os goal why he bothers us with push notifications

19:22Encourages us to keep up our streaks and now why he's gone out into the world to make sure that you keep learning

19:28Or else but hey once again, I want to thank Duolingo for reaching out to sponsor this video

19:33Please add me on Duolingo to start your language learning journey and help me keep up my streak

19:38Please help and as always remember that it's all just a theory a film theory and

19:45Cut

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