Johnny is dead. The ‘official’ cause of death is ‘suicide’ by stabbing himself with a knife 28 times. Everyone really knows, however, that this is a cover up story, and Johnny did not kill himself. In reality, the elites were covering up the crimes of one of their own – the self-proclaimed master of languages, Duo.
Johnny had begun using the infamous app Duolingo during the mid-year break after his family nagged him to join and his excuse of being ‘busy’ now failed. His initial scepticism had quickly turned into enthusiasm over the first two weeks. He was nailing the beginner Korean lessons with ease, he was collecting XP and gems at a rate that rivals the wealth of Jeff Bezos, and his streak was skyrocketing. This was much better than any prestigious ‘formal’ lessons of language learning encouraged by the elites. Surely this would last, and Johnny would become effectively a natural speaker of Korean.
It did not last. The seemingly cute and bubbly bird Duo and all the other characters drawn in a late 2010s corporate art style that only looks good compared to the AI slop prominent now were becoming increasingly grating to Johnny. Especially their non-stop promotion of ‘Super Duolingo’ because everything has to be fucking subscription based these days. Basically, nothing since the first few lessons had been retained, putting a slight bit of doubt that random apps are the best way to learn difficult new skills. The lessons were a grind, with the progress bar deliberately misleading him, suggesting more of the lesson is complete than reality. To make matters even worse, his family who had begged him to join the app in the first place had all given up, leaving hard-earned friend streaks to crumble like the Roman Empire.
The only things at this stage keeping Johnny from folding like Ed Sheeran and giving up on Duolingo was the sunk cost fallacy and the fear of what the Duo bird would do to him. The big fancy number on his streak was taunting him. One missed day and all the progress would vanish. Johnny simply could not let that happen despite his wishes. The Duo bird watching over him had grown more antagonistic as Johnny left his lessons later and later with each passing week and the quantity of lessons dwindled to the bare minimum.
Finally, after 25 days of leaving lessons until 11pm, Duo’s rage expanded beyond an angry stare from the phone. Duo emerged from the phone with a knife, and left Johnny with 28 stab wounds to ensure his final lesson from Duolingo would not be forgotten (unlike everything else for the past two months). Duo then slipped back into the app like nothing had ever happened, with a misleadingly optimistic demeanour that would continue to lure many more into the greatest trap of their lives.
추가 소식 예정.
