In the digital blank , bay window and company are faced with the quandary of create a social media comportment that people really mesh with . latterly , Duolingo has emerged as a success report of how to wrap the totality of social media around its finger , but a late tweet may be a foretoken that the marque needs to peel back on the edgelord meme humor .
The tweet in enquiry features a clip from the 2010 Nickelodeon Kid ’s Choice Awards , which shows popstar Katy Perry get a font full of immature gook . The moment has wide been memed since the award show aired over a X ago , and the snip stick resurfaced and pass on around social media every few months . This meter , however , Duolingo got the chance to interject itself into the conversation .
“ hold up is that my — ” the companytweeted . “ we ’re all thinking it , i just say it , ” it saidin a follow up .
Duolingo’s social media strategy is the capitalist equivalent of “I’m not like most girls.”Image: Konstantin Savusia (Shutterstock)
In case the joke flew over your headway , the Duolingo hooter is suggesting that the light-green sludge that covers Katy Perry in the clip is it ’s own ejaculate . Because the owl is green . Haha .
hold up is that my — https://t.co/PtWeGXulJ7
— Duolingo ( @duolingo)October 12 , 2022
Edgy brand Twitter is nothing unexampled — fast food franchise Wendy ’s is widely credited with break the facade of incarnate social metier beginning in 2017 bytweeting like a humaninstead of a brand . As more brands begin to realize the possibilities of approaching Twitter in a more free-and-easy light , the wage hike of TikTok saw sword come near this digital frontier in much the same fashion — and that includes Duolingo .
Duolingo ’s TikTok account is dead monolithic , with the company currently racking up 4.9 million followers and over 97 million likes across its posts . Duolingo begin stake in February 2021 , with TikToks concentrate on how to say different words and phrase in different language , which is the entire purpose of Duolingo . But around October 2021 , the company began to experiment more with TikTok — opting to post more content featuringits office , its mascot , a parasocial relationship with Dua Lipa , andtimely memes and trends — and its viewership only grew . Most of Duolingo ’s most successful TikToks do n’t even feature the existent Duolingo product , and some barely even mention the companionship or app .
An more and more nervy brand presence is a slippery slope . During the widely shroud domestic abuse trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard this past summer , the Internet openly side with Deppwhile mocking Heard . After NBC News uploaded a clip of the trial where Heard refers to the on-line hate she had been receiving . “Y’all think amber watches tiktok?”the Duolingo official report commented under the TikTok , which set off rebound against the company for making an off - colouration gossip in the wake of a then - on-going trial incubate claims of forcible abuse and intimate assault . The adult female behind the account at the clock time , 24 year old Zaria Parvez , quickly justify .
Parvez is Duolingo ’s Global Social Media Manager , which means she could be the mastermind behind the antecedently mentioned Katy Perry tweet . The tweet got people talking , even if some of the users that reply fell in the clique that the joke wentalittletoofar . It ’s not that jest about sex and memes are n’t funny , but nervy substance from brands lean to feel hollow when you think about it for more than two second base .
Duolingo ’s bearing on social metier , and specifically TikTok , speaks to a produce style of steel champion - ification . mark across the world are quickly learning that the best way to advertise is to go viral , and TikTok comment sections and Twitter timeline are the best billboards . The strategy is uncomplicated : stop over make yourself appear like a marque . The job is that in the effort to make the biggest opinion with the cooliest / most risque / funniest tweet you could think of , you ’re bound to finally come across as trying too intemperately while disaffect likely users in the meanwhile .
Duolingo did not at once return Gizmodo ’s request for input .
GizmodoOperating systemssoftwareTikTokWendyX ( Twitter )
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