Fast Company • 12th February 2025

'I will never recover from this': The internet is spiraling over the Duolingo owl's untimely death

The language-learning app shared the news in a tongue-in-cheek post yesterday. The cause of death remains under investigation, but Duolingo has its own theory: “Tbh, he probably died waiting for you to do your lesson, but what do we know?” the company wrote on X. “We’re aware he had many enemies, but we kindly ask you to refrain from sharing why you hate him in the comments.”an important message from Duolingo pic.twitter.com/jTTT680yVs— Duolingo (@duolingo) February 11, 2025The brand didn’t miss...

Fast Company • 29th October 2025

Inside the Superhuman effort to rebrand Grammarly

It’s rare for a company to give up more than a decade of brand recognizability for a new name. It’s even rarer for said company to trade their name for the name of a younger, less well-known company. But that’s exactly what Grammarly, the writing and grammar assistant tool with 40 million daily active users, is doing.

It’s rare for a company to give up more than a decade of brand recognizability for a new name. It’s even rarer for said company to trade their name for the name of a younger, less...

Fast Company • 8th December 2025

Apple’s new holiday ad is a wonderland of puppets and practical effects

The ad was created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab (MAL) (a bespoke global agency that partners only with Apple), directed by Mark Molloy, and shot on an iPhone 17 Pro. It appears to be building on a larger marketing theme for Apple. Just this November, MAL worked with the company to create a new visual identity for Apple TV using real glass props and colorful lighting. 

This kind of work stands out in a marketing landscape that’s become saturated with CGI and AI-generated content. Coca-Cola, for exampl...

Fast Company • 1st October 2025

The 22-year-old behind the most controversial ad campaign in New York tells all: 'I'm kind of purchasing the zeitgeist and mindshare right now'

“I’ll never leave dirty dishes in the sink,” one read. “I’ll never bail on our dinner plans,” another said. “I’ll binge the entire series with you,” a third promised.The ads—which rolled out on September 25 in the form of more than 11,000 car cards, 1,000 platform posters, and 130 urban panels—are part of a massive outdoor campaign for Friend, a wearable AI company billed as a portable “companion.” Since the campaign rolled out, it has received overwhelming criticism from local New Yorkers, with...

Fast Company • 19th December 2025

A brief history of the quesarito, Taco Bell’s visionary fast-food monstrosity

The quesarito is exactly what its name implies: a fully loaded burrito that, instead of being wrapped in a regular tortilla, has been lovingly sealed inside a giant quesadilla. It’s the epitome of fast-food gluttony, and as of December 18, it’s back in Taco Bell stores for a limited time for $6.70 (and a relatively modest 570 calories).The quesarito feels like the glaringly modern invention of view-farming TikTok food scientists, but it’s actually been around for more than a decade—and before it...

Fast Company • 24th September 2025

Inside Amazon’s ‘Iliad Flow,’ the deceptive UX at the center of its federal trial

The Federal Trade Commission is now taking Amazon to court over that cumbersome user journey, alleging that it was by design. The FTC claims that Amazon spent years knowingly trapping its customers in an endless Prime subscription—making cancellation so confusing that, per the agency, Amazon named the process the “Iliad Flow” after Homer’s 16,000-line epic poem.The FTC’s lawsuit, which was first filed in 2023, alleges that Amazon “tricked” more than 40 million customers into enrolling in automat...

Fast Company • 4th September 2024

How the pineapple became an icon of hookup culture everywhere

Here’s where the pineapple’s symbolic roots stem from, and how the fruit become the icon of hookup culture worldwide. Diamonds, galas, and . . . pineapples?Before the pineapple became a sex symbol, it actually stood for a different kind of indulgence: excessive wealth. The pineapple was originally imported to Europe from Guadeloupe in the 15th century, at which point Europeans—enraptured by the spiny fruit’s taste—tried, unsuccessfully, to grow it outside of its native tropical climate. From tha...

Fast Company • 6th August 2025

The real meaning behind that viral Department of Homeland Security painting

The department’s artistic choices haven’t been subtle, but none can compare to the overt messaging of its most recent art choice.On July 23, DHS posted a painting titled American Progress, alongside the caption, “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.” The 1873 painting by John Gast shows a group of white pioneers traveling west, forcing a group of Indigenous people out of frame. The irony of DHS’s post and caption, according to Martha Sandweiss, a professor emerita at Princeton...

Fast Company • 17th August 2024

How the popcorn bucket brought movie theaters back from the brink

A few years ago, sticking your buttery fingers into the mouth of Dune sandworm would have been the stuff of a fever dream. Today, it’s just part of the moviegoing experience. In the past several months, a market for wacky popcorn buckets has taken the movies by storm, creating a new revenue stream—and, perhaps more importantly, source of hype—for theater companies. These “collectible concession vessels” (CCVs), as industry professionals call them, aren’t just regular buckets with images on the s...