DUOLINGO X LOVE ISLAND
We gaslit people into believing Duo the Owl was a contestant on the reality show Love Island.
Peacock included Duo in their official cast announcement ahead of Season 7 by giving Duo his own "Meet the Islanders" video, filmed on the same set as the rest of the Islanders...
... and included Duo in both the boys' and girls' official introduction carousel posts with no explanation.
Knowing that many people consume Love Island through clips on social rather than watching the show, we began dropping edited clips from the show that featured Duo in them.
Since the show is fully shot on fixed cameras and aired live, in order to get Duo into the shots, we flew him to the villa in Fiji and shot him from several different angles before the show aired.
As the show aired, we edited this pre-shot footage into the show footage in real time to believably make him appear to be there.
We adapted our footage to trending content formats and memes to blend in seamlessly with other Love Island USA fan-made content
When the first recoupling happened, we made it appear as though Duo was the one who didn't get chosen to be in a couple and got eliminated.
In a complete stroke of luck, the real contestant who was eliminated happened to be wearing the same dress as Duo, causing fans to run with theories.
