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The value of a rule break

The value of a rule break

& other lessons from Duolingo 🦉

Tricia Mirchandani
March 11, 2025

On February 11, 2025, Duolingo announced on Instagram that our favorite green owl, Duo, had died.

On February 12, 2025, we learned the cause of death. (Cybetruck, ofc)

On February 24, 2025, we rejoiced as Duo rose from a coffin in the back of a flatbed truck and admitted to faking his own death.

And on February 25, 2025, LinkedIn exploded with 87,000^* posts, articles, and comments warning marketers that you can’t just tell your social team to “be more like Duolingo.”

Now that we’re all caught up on the timeline, let’s dig in.

On the one hand, those LinkedIn posts are spot on. No company, brand, social media manager, or creative team should pick up Duolingo’s playbook and try to replicate it. At T Collective, we believe there is space for everyone in this world (except for when it comes to big green owls, then there can be only one).

On the other hand, as long as we don’t interpret this too literally, we might all be well-advised to “be more like Duolingo.” And not just social media teams but even — perhaps especially — marketing teams. Specifically when it comes to listening to our audiences, allowing them some agency with regard to where the brand goes, and pivoting where necessary.

To illustrate, let’s look at Duo’s origin story.

When the language learning app launched in 2011, the green owl was little more than an icon welcoming you to the app and encouraging your learning. His encouragement was persistent (“persistent” is listed in the brand’s style guide for how the owl should show up).

Naturally, the internet responded. The Evil Duolingo Owl was born in 2017. Users created hundreds of memes in which Duo threatens your life and family if you don’t complete your lessons.

Notably, the brand’s style guide specifies that Duo should never be negative, threatening, angry, aggressive, violent, or overly creepy.

But then, in 2019, they post this.

Does it break the rules set out in the style guide? Sure does.

Did they stop there? Nope.

Go ahead, watch the video. We’ll wait…

Duo Push is obviously a prank. But Duo as a real three-dimensional character lived on. In the following years, he escaped capture by the brand’s legal team, started fights with the PR team, proposed to Dua Lipa, and generally engaged in shenanigans on TikTok. Though none of these specifically violate the style guide, each one took risks with the brand and its mascot that most marketing teams would have shot down from the jump.

And that’s where we could all be a little more like Duolingo.

The Duolingo marketing team understands one very fundamental aspect of branding and marketing: Your brand is not only yours.

If you’re doing it right, your brand also belongs to your customers. You want them to own it, love it, make it part of their lives, and feel like they can be a part of it.

Each person who created or shared an Evil Duo meme wasn’t just turning Duolingo’s mascot into an evil, blood-thirsty villain. They were taking their precious free time to engage with the brand in a way that demonstrates how deeply ingrained the brand is in their daily lives.

And if that’s not the highest level of brand love, we don’t know what is.

So when your customers are inspired enough by your brand to create something with it, lean in. Give them more to talk about, engage with, and create from.

Just don’t make it an owl. That spot’s been taken.

^*High-level estimate/exaggeration.

Gif by schittscreek on Giphy

Did you know about Duo and his TikTok shenanigans before or was this new to you?

News to use

Do we really need another app?

Their new Edits app has been called a "Reels app," and the closer we get to launch, the more information we're getting about what might — and might not — be included in the features list.

Is it meant to compete more directly with TikTok?

Will you still be able to post and watch Reels on IG? To both, probably.

But will we all abandon TT and IG in favor of it? Not likely.

Still, we'll obviously download it as soon as we can regardless to see if the CapCut-like editing tools and brave new frontier for engaging new followers are enough to lure us into learning another platform.

We'll report back.

T Collective recommends

All work, no play? Not us.

Reading “If You Can’t Take the Heat” by Geraldine DeRuiter. Short-ish essays in DeRuiter’s snappy, sometimes snarky, voice make for a fun read.

Listening to “Kansas Anymore (The Longest Goodbye)” by Role Model in preparation for seeing him in concert this week!

Watching “The Great British Baking Show.” After not watching for a few years, it’s so good to be back in the tent.