Duolingo

For finding a common language

- GRACE SNELLING

A white van stop skids to a below Netflix's marquee billboard on Los Angeles's Sunset Boulevard.

Its 4:38 A.M. ON THIS DECEMBER MORNING, STILL dark out. Henchmen in pink jumpsuits stream out of the van and swarm the billboard, replacing its English letters with Korean characters until it spells out a single phrase: 한국어를 배우지 않으면 벌을 받는다 (“Learn Korean or else”).

This wasn't a hostile takeover but part of a sweeping collaboration between Netflix and the language-learning app Duolingo pegged to season 2 of the streamer's hit South Korean show Squid Game. After the first season, the app saw use of its Korean-language course jump 40% within two weeks. This time, Duolingo was ready. It created Squid Game vocabulary lessons, rolled out a TikTok filter that tests Korean pronunciation, and dropped an original K-pop song for a Squid Game-themed music video that notched more than 42 million views on TikTok and surpassed 7.5 million on YouTube. Front and center throughout the campaign was Duo—Duolingo's green owl mascot—dressed as one of Squid Game's iconic Pink Guards.

Duolingo and its mascot always seem to be one step ahead of the zeitgeist these days. Over the past year or so, the owl has starred in a Super Bowl ad, appeared on a pair of co-branded Crocs, and showed off his brat green at a Charli XCX concert. Duo hosted his own set of owl games for the Paris Olympics on TikTok, appeared in a nine-episode sitcom on YouTube shorts, and used Red-Note to playfully plug Duolingo's Mandarin lessons in early January, ahead of the TikTok ban. Within a week, the classes had spiked 216% among U.S. users. (TikTok's fate was still undetermined at press time.)