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Lemmy Shitpost @lemmy.world

"no" banana @lemmy.world

1y ago

Scared the shit out of me ngl

39 comments

Duolingo regularly changes their app icon to weird things. It's not done to get users to buy things. It's so you post the icon on social media as a form a free advertising. The company really loves that their mascot has become a meme and play into it.
- Evil corporate wants us to fucking birdwatch
  
  Good thing birds aren't real.
  
  Why evil? I’m not a capitalist, but it’s a language learning company being silly; they aren’t causing massive injustice.
- The sheeple gotta stop giving free advertising to corporations

They're always doing creepy shit with that bird
- He just wants to talk with you about your Spanish lessons. In an alley. In the inner city. At night.
  
  With a baseball bat. Politely.
- The Spanish or Vanish ad is terrifying. I don't know how the marketing team got permission to have "I love the taste of human flesh" in Spanish as one of the lyrics in the song.

This scared my housemate too. It's manipulation to get you to continue, so you buy their subscriptions and/or microtransactions. I love Duolingo, but fuck this manipulation shit.
- Personally all it did for me was make me uninstall the app years ago (this picture has been appropriated for comedic use)
  
  Fair.
- I mean, of all the ways to manipulate people into paying money on an app, I feel like changing the app icon to draw attention is fairly benign?
  
  It's a [accidentally(?) nightmare-fuel] sad face designed to get you back in so you spend money. It might not be the worst thing ever, but it's still pretty gross. Also the app is used by children.
- well it's a language learning app so a little bit of motivation to use the thing like every day can be a great thing for the user
  
  Emotional manipulation wouldn't be a good way, especially not a face that scares the shit out of people (I can't even look at it, as I'm sensitive to uncanny valley and distorted faces, especially the kinds of sad or scared faces 1940s cartoons used to freak you out. My nightmares often have these in them). Especially not so that it can get you back to spending money, and tripley-especially not so that it can get you back to spending microtransactions.

I know, what’s up with too-old lingo?

huh, the wrinkles go away when I enlarge the image for viewing.

Same, what's this about anyway? xd
- Same. The bird is dying because you haven't completed a lesson in a long time. He so sad... only you can cheer him up.
  Edit: I just completed three lessons and he still looks haggard, so I don't know what that little fucker wants. Probably for us all to purchase the paid version.
  
  It's just the newest icon update. They change the icon every once in a while to get people to open the app again.
  It has nothing to do with your actual usage.
  
  I have the paid version, I'm on a 109 day streak, and the stupid bird still looks like that. Must be a bug

The notification makes it look like they got hit in the head.

Duo is not sad. Just disappointed. Duo gives you seven days to live.

39 comments