Meet The Duolingo Owl: How It Became So Popular?

The word Duolingo comes from two different words ‘Duo’ meaning two and’ Lingo’ meaning languages. Thus Duolingo is an online language learning platform on which you can learn two or more languages freely. It is the platform that will help you in increasing your fluency level in the language you have chosen. However, when you look for the platform, you see an owl coming on the screen. Here we will help you to know about this Duolingo owl.

Quick Takeaways

  • Duolingo owl is the owl that brings good luck to Duolingo. As in many cultures, an owl depicts the symbol of knowledge, it was used to represent Duolingo.
  • The name of this Duolingo owl is Duo and is green in colour.
  • You will see duo many times to encourage and motivate you for completing your lessons.
  • In 2017, the team launches different duo memes which were able to increase the attention of the users and they started getting popular. 
  • In 2020, when they go into partnership with angry birds, the red bird was also seen in some of the meme videos.
  • Also, they take the advantage of TikTok. They started creating hilarious videos of the duo on their official page which within no time got popular.

However, you must read till the end so that you do not miss any of the important information related to the Duolingo owl.

What is the Duolingo Owl?

Duolingo owl is an owl that helps to bring good luck to the platform. It is basically the Duolingo icon which you can see when you install Duolingo. Further, you must also remember that this owl is available to every Duolingo user even if you are a free user. He is green in colour which is similar to spectacled owl species in the real world. It is like a brand ambassador who will act like a coach many times while using the platform. This owl will prompt you again and again for encouraging you.

One such character is Bea which is similar to this own. You will see this owl at various steps in Duolingo like taking part in leagues, legendary levels, crowns, etc. When you will get the Duolingo Plus membership, your owl will change to a little Bluish colour. If you want to take the subscription plan go for the Family plan. You can share the cost of it with other people.

What is the name of Duolingo Owl?

The name of the Duolingo owl is Duo. However many people are not aware of this name and mostly you will hear it as Duolingo owl or feathered green guy. If we considered French, the meaning of ‘Duo’ is an owl who does not have ear tufts. When you will be learning the course offline, you may not see the owl in the course. However, once you go on the app with an internet connection it will come back.

How did Duolingo Owl become so popular?

Duolingo has more than 500 million users and a lot of different languages on its platform worldwide, including Japanese, Spanish, Russian, French, Portuguese, etc. Some languages have special features like happy hours, Podcasts and Stories as well. In 2017 it becomes an important part of your daily learning. At every stage of your learning, you will see this owl push you for completing your lessons. Though it was designed in such a manner to push your limits, with time they started creating Duolingo memes which become so much more popular. There were reminders in which the duo was hilariously motivating (just like the funny statements in the lessons) the people to complete the lessons.

In some of the memes, the duo was seen threatening the users who were not completing their lessons on time. These memes were named evil Duolingo owl. In some of the memes, the duo was shown stalking the users who were not completing their lessons and was known as the duo push meme in 2019. 

Further in 2020, Duolingo get into a partnership with angry birds. After getting into membership with them, the company included red bird in their memes and videos also. One such video that you may have seen is arriving of the duo along with the red bird when the user has not completed their french lessons. Further, when they started posting videos on Tik Tok, the page only has 50k followers. After they started sharing videos on the platform, the videos started getting viral on the platform in September. However one of the most common questions that people have is why Duolingo uses Owl.

Why Duolingo has chosen an owl?

The most important reason why it is an owl is that it represents knowledge in some cultures. As Duolingo is an educational platform, it makes all sense for why choosing the owl for representing them. In addition to it, there are some cultures that represent owls as a symbol of good luck. But in some cultures, it may represent the symbol of death and thus many believe that it should not be an owl. However, you must remember that the team is using owls to represent good luck and knowledge. 

How does the duo evolve with time?

Duolingo was established in 2011 and since then the duo has been a big part of the journey. Let us discuss how it evolved with time-

2011 (Original Duolingo Owl)

As it was the first owl that was on Duolingo, it is also known as OG Duolingo. It had a simple organic 2 dimension shape along with feathers on the chest. If we talk about the face, there was only his name written in such a manner that D and O alphabets represent its eyes and U is its beak.

2012

The OG duo was soon changed in 2012. In 2012 it get its 3D shape. Some of its features are still present in the current structure of Duo. However, the eyes and the wings were like feathers. The beak of the owl was like a tortilla chip which is joined together.

2014 

It was the same for consecutive 4 years. The duo of 2014 is much cuter, warmer, and cuddlier than the previous versions of it. Despite having a similar structure to 2012, the beak of it becomes smoother and the eyes and the wings are no more in feather shape. You will also notice that the feet are not attached to the body.

2018

The current duo you see was first created in 2018. It has big owl eyes. The wings are shown as a half circle which is hidden behind the body. Again the feet are not attached to the body like in the previous version. You can also see feather-like structures on the chest. 

Conclusion

Duolingo is a platform that helps you to learn different languages. However, when you open Duolingo you see an owl prompting on the screen. This owl basically represents Duolingo and helps to bring good luck to the platform. You will see it prompting on your screen multiple times to encourage you to complete the lessons. The name of this owl is a duo and is green in colour. Is just like spectacled owl species in the real world.

In 2017, the platform started creating meme videos on the platform which help to gain popularity. There were funny videos of the duo threatening the users who do not complete their lessons. Further, when they started posting videos on their TikTok account it started getting viral and Duo become very popular.

FAQs

Who designed the Duolingo owl?

Duolingo owl was designed by Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker in 2011.

Is the duo a girl or a boy?

According to the official statement by the team Duolingo, the Duolingo owl is a boy. Thus you must consider him as he or him. However, some sources consider it androgynous.

Why is Duolingo TikTok so popular?

The success of anything getting popular is based on the understanding of the things that are attracting customers. The team of Duolingo also tried to understand what customer wants and started creating content based on it on TikTok. 

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