The old Duo can’t come to the phone right now. Why? ‘Cause he’s dead.

On February 11, Duolingo announced on social media with “heavy hearts” that Duo, formally known as the Duolingo owl, is dead.

Shortly after sharing the tragic announcement, Duolingo’s marketing team began to tease the cause of death for their beloved bird. It became a mystery for the internet to solve. Duolingo’s socials blew up with comments and new followers overnight and over the weeks following. Other brands—completely unrelated—got involved in the conversation. KFC, Chevrolet, and Scrub Daddy amongst many others were commenting to get on the marketing train. Some companies even claimed they were the murderer.

Pinterest said it best: “All of the sudden we’re detectives.”

Duo has had a longtime crush on the singer Dua Lipa. It has been more of a one-sided relationship. But after his unfortunate passing, Dua Lipa commented on Duolingo’s official post, “Til’ death duo part,” with a broken heart emoji.

Duolingo posted that they were “holding space” for Dua Lipa, referencing the recent Wicked movie. In an exciting turn of events, Duolingo announced that a Cybertruck hit Duo. Possibly a jab at Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the current political climate of the States, but this part of the mystery remains unsolved.

The saga continues with a tweet by the official X account (formerly known as Twitter): “All birds go to heaven.” Duo’s response was iconic: “both killed by a Cybertruck,” referring to Musk purchasing and ruining Twitter.

Duolingo’s posts continued throughout the month, even commenting on the Super Bowl events. Duo also has a music learning app. They created a video replicating rapper Kendrick Lamar’s dig at Drake. They marketed to learning a song in “A minor,” alluding to allegations of Drake being involved with a minor—not the musical key, but an underage girl.

If there is an opportunity for Duolingo to comment on pop culture, Duolingo’s marketing team is on it. Duo is the ultimate internet troll.

The theories are seemingly never-ending. Check out Duolingo’s profile for yourself and do some internet sleuthing.

The marketing team took the internet by storm in a way that hadn’t been done since last summer with Charlie XCX’s album brat. Duo is the new green.

In a recent video, Duo explained that all of this had been orchestrated for people to do their daily lessons. Make sure you do your daily lesson in the language of your choice, or there may be consequences.

All roads lead back to Taylor. The caption to Duo’s explanation video is one of Miss Swift’s lyrics, “It was all by design because I’m a mastermind.” This is the collab we haven’t asked for but need.

And so, Duo faked his own death. Now that we know he is alive and back with a vengeance, follow to see what Duo will do next.