Duolingo’s five-year-long cruise around the world! Definitely real! Definitely not clickbait!

By: Madelynn Lockwood, Features Editor

April Fool’s Day and Duo the Duolingo Owl go together like peanut butter and jelly. This year Duolingo and Carnival, the cruise service, partnered to create a new cruise focused on language learning! 

They advertised “Duolingo World Cruise. Sail across 7 continents, explore 195 countries, and learn over 40 languages.” That’s certainly a tall order! It is a five-year-long cruise that you are unable to leave under any circumstances…eerie. Additional details of the cruise can be found on Carnival’s website and I will forewarn you that it only gets worse from there.

If you didn’t put it together yet, this was their annual April Fool’s Day joke executed in such a way that many people (not me, though) believed it was an announcement for an actual cruise. The details sent to all Duolingo users seemed awfully specific and awfully unhinged, including things such as “You may bring one (1) personal snack item. Choose wisely,” and ‘Missing your streak triggers a ship-wide announcement. Duo will personally visit your stateroom to discuss your ‘motivation’” in the FAQ section. Honestly, to see all the time and energy that was dedicated to this joke you need to just check it out for yourself.

If you know anything about Duolingo and Duo the Owl then you know they have become synonymous for creating some wild marketing and promotions for their language-learning service. Many people – even those not on the language-learning grind – know that mischievous green owl from their strong social media presence. Often their mascot is seen participating in viral trends online, but somehow manages to do it in a way that isn’t too down-your-throat for the consumer. 

They most definitely know their audience and how to get a reaction from them. As previously mentioned, Duo is no novice to wacky activities and the team behind him make sure he optimizes every trend online. Users began to poke fun at how often Duolingo sent push notifications about continuing their daily streak, and all of a sudden Duolingo was joking about itself, claiming how “Duo is always watching.”

In 2023, Duo had his wing on the pulse so well that he even made an appearance at “The Eras Tour” in Pittsburgh, PA. He met Swifties, outside the venue such as myself,dressed in Taylor’s iconic “Bejeweled” music video bodysuit, handed out friendship bracelets and played games with the crowd. Duolingo has pretty masterfully been able to take advantage of the popularity of both their crazy owl and other pop culture references to promote themselves even more.

I am a big fan of Duolingo both as a regular person who likes to keep up on their language learning and as a person who teaches the English language for a living. Seeing the zany green bird on my socials has become pretty entertaining and in the end, Duo just wants you to remember to maintain your streak…or else.