It’s so cliche for a marketing newsletter to write about Duolingo, but here we are, because the brand’s constantly worth talking about. I won’t spoil the piece (though you’ve clicked the email, so uh, it’s already been spoiled), but one more social media thing before we talk about the green bird:

I’m throwing a free digital event to help ya dip your toe into LinkedIn personal branding. I really do think with just a few posts, we can get you comfortable writing about your career and work perspectives in a way that’ll pull in new clients, jobs, and bosses—more info on that link or at the bottom of today’s newsletter.

But now, let’s get fowl.

—Jack Appleby

Duolingo’s growing up. The brand that put Unhinged Marketing on the TikTok map has publicly said they’ll making fewer “butt jokes” (an actual quote from their CMO) and recalibrate the green owl’s marketing from “80% unhinged, 20% wholesome” to a more balanced approach. Pretty surprising move from a brand that farted during the Super Bowl, stalked Dua Lipa, had sex with Scrub Daddy, and generally left a trail of chaos across the internet.

Anddd even though I’ve always hated unhinged marketing, I think Duolingo’s making a colossal mistake. This is the way the bird ends—not with a bang, but with a whimper.

You could genuinely argue Duolingo’s the most famous social media brand of all time. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the brand grew to 17 million TikTok followers over the last 5 years thanks to their absolutely bananas content, culminating in an insane 1.7 billion organic impressions for the campaign that “killed” off their owl mascot (spoilers, but Duo wasn’t actually dead). The strategy wasn’t all for show, either—Duolingo’s Q1 shareholder letter directly credited the Dead Duo campaign with driving a meaningful lift in new and resurrected users.

In an interview with Business Insider, Duolingo CMO Manu Orssaud explained the brand’s new strategy, with some… um… concerning perspectives.

Overall, he wants the brand to be more balanced going forward, which I could understand if he’d talked brand strategy, audience, or conversions… but instead, he listed off a bunch of social media thoughts that are… just wrong?

A handful of views he shared:

I’m perplexed. If he’d waxed about demographics of users, or the need to mature the brand’s tone to appeal to converting customers, or if there are severe diminishing returns on unhinged approaches, I could understand the argument. Instead… he listed off a bunch of social media strategic notes that don’t… really… make sense.

I do wanna address his social POVs, but I think he’s got a muchhh bigger problem coming.

Duolingo’s 17 million TikTok Followers? Yeah, none of them are there to learn Spanish. Their audience is 100% comprised of shitpost fans. They followed an unhinged owl. That's the deal Duo made. They spent four years training an audience to expect chaos, and now want to serve them... balance?

Good luck with that.

TikTok's algorithm is brutally honest about audience expectations. When you stop delivering what people followed you for, engagement craters. When engagement craters, reach craters. The platform does not care about your strategic pivot, it cares about whether people are watching. And the specific type of internet person who followed a chaotic owl mascot is not the type of person who sticks around for wholesome content.

Duolingo chose this audience. They chose to follow because of the chaos. Pivoting to something more measured doesn't convert them into a different kind of follower, it just makes them stop watching.

Alright, back to those weird comments the CMO made about social media.

It’s honestly concerning and a little stupid that a 2026 CMO would say TikTok wants brands to pay for reach. Sure, TikTok (and Meta, for that matter) would love if you kicked in some paid media budget, but these social platforms are democratic, and organic reach is INCREDIBLE in the For You Page era—your brand can reach both followers and non-followers organically!

My source for that: DUOLINGO. Their Tiktok earned 472 million likes in the last five years. They were organically the most viral of viral, in a way I honestly don’t think any brand ever will be again.

If he feels it’s harder for Duolingo to get the same organic reach they once had, I’d squarely blame losing their infamous social media manager Zaria Parvez (who now heads up DoorDash’s social efforts) or the immense fallout the company faced when they talked about AI in the workplace. Hard to replicate results when you lose a social media GOAT. But don’t for a second blame the platform or an algorithm. Look inward.

It’s no secret I’ve never cared for unhinged. I do think we as social media pros representing for-profit corporations have an ethical responsibility to not use budgets to make the internet a dumber / worse place.

And hey, maybe the CMO’s not being forthright with the why behind the strategy shift. Maybe unhinged hasn’t actually been as effective as we’d thought for the overall business. But the reasoning he shared in the interview doesn’t make any sense, and a more “balanced” approach is gonna tank their TikTok.

My last three full-time jobs? All came in the DMs from people who read my content. And I really believe everyone has incredible stories from their career worth sharing on LinkedIn, that could honestly find you your next job, client, or boss.

So when LinkedIn asked me to play around with their new live events tool, I figured that’s what we should talk about!

So I’m hosting “How Writing On LinkedIn Will Get You Your Next Job.” It’s free to anyone with a LinkedIn Premium subscription. I don’t wanna make you a ~content creator~, I just wanna help you start with a couple LinkedIn posts, frame your perspective, get writing on a platform that could change your career. RSVP right here!