The Chaser Report - ARVO: Duolingo Owl wants you dead | Ange Lavoipierre

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Ange Lavoipierre joins Gabbi and Dom for an Arvo Chat. Ange and Gabbi bond over their Bathurst-ancestry, and stoke the flames of our Bathurst vs. Orange debate. Plus Ange talks inviting your parents to your comedy show, and the worst phrases Duolingo asks you to learn. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to an afternoon in addition to The Chaser Report. Gabby Bolt and Dom Knight here with Angel Lavapier. Hi, and welcome back. Hi, thanks so much. And your show coming up at several comedy festivals is I've got 99 problems in here as an exhaustive list of them. How did it go in, were you in Adelaide with Gabby? It was in Adelaide.

We didn't cross over at all. We were at different. I was at the non-COVID end of the festival. and Gabby was at the COVID end of the festival, the most coveted end of the festival. But yeah, no, it went great. I, you know, rewrote it, as is tradition, rewrote it really dramatically in like the three days leading up.

And then I went, yeah, that's good. Yeah, I'll do that on stage. But it was good. I was right again. Love it when that happens. No, it was heaps of fun. How many people in the Adelaide audience thought that you were actually a spider in your spider suit?

I did have the odd arachnophobia. which is something that I really wasn't expecting. Like, I kind of joke about it when I'm, you know, promoting the show. I'm, you know, say, like, oh, ha, ha, ha, like, arachnophobes beware. But there's always at least one arachnophobe in the audience. And they do not cope. Right. So the part of the brain that's on the lookout for spiders constantly is faster than

the part of the brain that goes, no, that's a human woman wearing a weird suit. That's a woman wearing a balaclava with, eyes. Yeah, they don't, yeah, it doesn't catch up. All right, in a second we'll hear about. And just trip to Bathurst, hometown of Gabby. The Chaser Report, less news, more often. Right, so y'all'm the old one out.

I don't come from Bathurst. I know, how weird. We've joked about this before, where we were like, the reason we're comedians is because of our upbringing in the town that has to give you trauma. I'm so excited that as the two-thirds of the people in the room, being from Bathis, we are now in the totally unique opportunity of being able to bully someone

else for not being from Bathurst, which you never ever happen. It's like, oh, you're not from Bathurst? What's that even like? Do you even know what I'm talking about when I say that the lights on the way out of town, when you drive into town, it looks like it's all in the shape of a dick. It's a ditch the dick highway. If you know, you know. And Dom doesn't know.

No. And you'll never know. I love this. Keep coming. So there's a dick highway. Yeah, there's a dick highway. Is it pointing towards Dubbo? It's both ways, Dom.

No way. It's the beauty of it. It points towards the whole of the centre of Australia. It's just Sydney just chizzing on the rest of Australia. I never said the word jizzing before my life. Oh, does it lead to Mount Panorama? Surely. It's actually right past.

It's sort of raises. It's quite interesting because when you're coming into town, it's like you can see the horizon of the town. You can see Mount Panorama, Walu to the left. Wow. And you can see like the Carillion and you can see everything. And then, yeah, it's just lined by the street lamps in the shape of a big old double-ended dong. Yeah, it's quite, it's unmistakable.

It's progressive. I'll never get the day I figured that out. Like, everyone was always talking about it on the school bus. And then, like, you have to have a mate show it to you. Because I didn't understand what people were talking about. I thought there was like a literal sign. And then it was like, no, look at the street lamps. And I was like, oh, I was like 17.

What's progressive about there being a giant dick? It's sex positive. Isn't it? Not positive. Not positive for sure. Yeah. For sure. I mean, arguably, that's actually a terrible sort of relic of, you know,

blokes drawing dicks on things in a town planning way, which is a, I guess, of a height that no other town has achieved in Australia. It is a valley full of light. So maybe you could argue that, you know, the town more generally resembles, you know, lights in the shape of a vagina. Yeah, true. So maybe there's some, you know, some balance there, as it were. Okay.

In and Yang. Very nice. So what other. culturally Pacific Bathis gear is there that, because I want to know, when I go to Bathis next I want to be like, oh, have you seen the dick lights? Yeah, both directions. That'll kill. That'll kill in Bathis. You actually, yeah, to crush. Gabby's got a whole song about the limited number of pubs. It's hard. I have a really weird relationship with Bathis because I think my relationship with all the people there obviously is really good because I grew up there. So it's like

there are people. And you've got to say that because they, we know they listen. Well, yeah, my mum listens to this podcast every day walking around Bathis. So hi, but also like yeah the people there are really lovely and you can cultivate a really beautiful community there but like just in terms of if you took all the nice people out then there's some interesting topics like okay so they built a shopping center in 2009 it was the highlight of my year seven experience and um it forever has been known locally as the new shopping center it's been over 10 years and everyone still calls it the new shopping center and it will be the new shopping center until they build another one in 2050 yeah yeah

yeah well you know in Paris the new Brue is the oldest bridge in town. So maybe it'll, maybe it'll be the new shopping center. Yeah. Just the beginning of the similarity between Pathust and Paris. Paris and Bathis have a Paris end? It kind of does.

It's Keppel Street. I used to live on Keppel Street. It's like, it's dried up. There's like coffee. There's like an antique. We can't, that's not going to be relatable listening. Well, actually, my brother lived in. We're doing non-relatable Beth's content.

So my brother lived in a show house on Kepa Street as well. I lived in the station master's house. Get out. That's, no, it's true. It was the first time that they'd rented it out. because it was a deceased estate. And so we were the first ones in there. And it's legitimately, like, it's been there since

bloody Ben Chiffley. Yeah, it's heritage. Yeah, it's full heritage listed. It's right next to the station, which is this beautiful old building. Anyway, so I move in there, immediately claim the master bedroom because that's the kind of night here I am. It's not just the master bedroom.

It's the station master bedroom. It's just amazing. And so I get in there and there's this cupboard that's come with the house. And I open it. And there's a gunner. in the back. Well, it's the wild central west.

So I freaked out because I'm like 19 at the time or whatever. And so, you know, the three or four people that are sort of moving in with, you all sort of like, we do the thing where you're like, you just kind of put your hands on your head and then on another part of your body. And then you turn into circling, you sort of like walk around. You say the other person like, what do we do? And the other person says, I don't know. And then you walk to someone to sit here, what do we do?

I don't know. So there's just full freaking out for a while. And then we go, let's take another look at the gun. And then so we go back to the cupboard, pick up the gun. pick up the gun and then someone who was like who had seen a gun before I'd seen a gun before but you know yeah this guy knew guns because it's the country what kind of gun are we talking like a tiny pistol he pointed out to me that it was just like a shotgun a spud gun a spud gun but it's a really old like well like it looked like a real it is a real gun it does fire stuff but it's just like

little pellets like little tiny little baby be bea pellets yeah my step that has one you can like you could maybe quite badly maim or injure someone, but you're unlikely to be able to kill someone unless you're a real crack shot. So our personal theory was that you had the station master because there's these windows and you've got this lovely aspect and you can see everyone who gets off the train from Sydney exiting the train and walking into the Paris end of Bathurst

and it would just be the perfect place to like really... Do some damage. To wing a few country, wing a few city folk. Yeah, it's funny. Show those cities like. is where they are. Let them know. It's the perfect injury

because it's like it doesn't actually kill anyone. I've shot a BB gun. So like my stepdad is this like number one on the trip advisor thing to do in Bathurst? I am going to find a BB gun in a deceased estate.

Shoot it at some city slickers. That's what you do. Yeah, go to the traffic lights that look like a dick and shoot them out with the baby gun. It sounds like a joke, but genuinely one of the first ways I bonded with my stepdad.

So my mum remarried when I was about sort of, she remarried when I was 18, but she met him when I was about 16. So like obviously he's trying to get in with the kids. You know, and I'm the youngest, and I'm 16, so it's a bit, it's pretty easy because I'm 16. But he was like, I got a baby gun. And I was like, yeah, sick.

And so we like lined up beer cans in the backyard and then you try and shoot them. And it's like, Andrew's right. You actually have to be really, really good aim to actually hit anything. I was terrible. They're kind of like, they're kind of crappy guns. Like you really have to. The shit. Yeah.

But they're a lot of fun. And they can do some damage. I accidentally hit my brother, which was. Oh, wow. He was fine. He was from a fair distance away. So it was kind of like just getting flicked. But I was imagining.

that the station master at Bathis needed like a full kind of semi-automatic in the event that the people from Orange finally attacked. They wouldn't come on the train though. There's a lot of tension. But they would. Wouldn't they come on the train in order to a sneak attack?

No, they've got tunnels. Yeah, they've got, you're more likely to see Orange folk. Like anyone more West would come in on a bus. They wouldn't come in on a train unless they caught that really, really, really expensive train. The one goes all the way to double. No, fancy train. I imagine them.

Yeah, food on board. See, if you're from Orange and you're to invade Bathis. Don't you go from the other side? No, they're just driving. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report.

All right, if you've made it this far into the podcast, that's Batha specific. I just can't believe we've talked about this. There's so much more, but anyway. No, there is so much more because Ange was there just on the weekend. Oh, I did. Just passed. I went back to the home country to surprise my mother for her birthday. And we really nailed the surprise.

In fact, we were so committed to the fiction of, you know, so committed to this surprise that we were like talking to her in the week leading up and she was being quite sweet like, oh, where am I going to see before my birthday? And like, when are we going to get to chat again? And I was probably, I probably erred too much on the side of, you know, how do you say, being a bitch. It's a way to kind of sell that I was, you know, Nothing was going on.

Nothing special was happening. It's like, oh, look, Mom, I can't, I can't really talk now. And, like, I don't think I'm going to have time to see before your birthday. And I, there was this moment where I just kind of heard her, like, her mood really dropped. Like, she was quite disappointed on the phone. She was like, oh, well, that's all right. And I was like, oh, I might be over, I might be over-egging this pudding. Are you doing it?

But look, the look on her face, when we, when we walked into the backyard and she was on the ride on lawnmower because they got a couple of, couple of acres. you know, keeping it tidy in case the queen comes, and she's sort of on this quite big slope, and she saw me, and then she, like, she sort of blanched like I was a ghost, and then she, like, double, did a violent double take, and then lurched the ride-on lawnmower, and there's this moment where time stood still, and, like, my dad and my partner, and I was standing there watching her going, like, oh, she's going to tip the lawnmower, this is how my mum dies. This is how, this is how my mum dies.

And, you know, it turned out okay, but it was, you know, it made the next, made the next sort of 24 hours all the sweeter because I nearly killed my mom. Thank goodness because I could totally imagine making the next 24 hours awful. Yeah. It would have been a real bummer for the way. I would have, like, righted myself by Monday, but Saturday and Sunday would have been quite sad. Yeah. It's funny because like my mum, also in Bathurst, hi, mum, listening to the podcast.

She, like, I've been telling her about Melbourne and she was like, I'm going to come. So we're making like some plans for her to come to Melbourne and she doesn't travel very much. And so she was like, she was still going to be on the phone and we'll make you. all these plans like let's go to the acme and do all this stuff and i and i told her that i would get her into my show for free and she was she was like oh well only if you can i'm like mom you're probably like the only person that always gets like a free ticket like of course also like i love that she doesn't necessarily have all that much faith in you like if you've got that kind of power sweetheart it's my show yeah yeah yeah i have that power she's like well you talk to

the venue i'm like oh my god i can't it's fine because they're the ones like for your very first show that you do in your room, they give you like five bucks to go in, and they're your only ticket purchaser, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the notion, then they have to stop paying. Yeah, it must be quite alien. And then I told her that, you know, I'll, if we run into anyone successful, like, she was like, I want to go see Judith Lucy and Denise Scott.

And I was like, oh, I'm sure we will. Like, and I said, you know, if we run into them at anything, you know, I'll take a photo and she was like, oh, great. And then the funniest thing she said on the phone to me, like, no joke. She was like, I'm going to have to wash all my black clothes, aren't I? That's what's trendy in my. Melbourne, isn't it? And I was like, she's not wrong. She's into it. And it's so funny, because this is a woman who has, for the majority of the 25 years I've been alive, worn black clothing

and like a colourful Pajmina. And I'm like, mum, you already, like, you already dress Melbourne. You don't have to worry about dressing Melbourne. That is so much more Melbourne than the stereotype too. Because it's like, it's like you wear black all day. But then when you go out to, I don't know, some opening or Fed Square or something, you go to the gallery. Oh, put a colorful Paschamina on. It's a colorful scarf. It's an opening. Yeah, but bless it. Make an effort. I'm just so excited. Yeah,

Mum and Gabby Take fucking Melbourne. It's going to be so hilarious. Is she sort of a mental, does she belong in Melbourne? Like, is she in exile at this point? No, she's always been a country head

because she's from Forbes. Like, she grew up in Forbes. Yeah. I'm from Forbes initially. Fuck off. This is sick. Okay,

so my mum, sorry for giving me so much of your identity. Her name is Day and she was like she went to Forbes High and Forbes Primary and all of it. I went to Forbes Primary. If you're not from,

if you're not from the Central Western New South Wales, just look on Google maps for all these places. You'll see some tiny, tiny dots on the map. They're quite small. And these are the places where these people are from. Yeah. So, yeah, so my mum's from Forbes originally. Then she moved to Wogger for a year to do uni. She dropped out, like mother-like daughter. And then she lived in Tannenworth. And then she lived in Bathurst. So she's always lived in country areas. Just hates the population center. Hates to see a traffic light. No, thank you. She doesn't like, I don't think she likes feeling

crowded, my mother. And so Melvin, she loves going away to cities to get some culture, which is a joke I make all the time, but she doesn't travel very often. She used to, I think, you know, you'd go to travel. Well, the mistake you've made is telling your mum that you can comp her. Like, that's a real first season thing. Like, I've like, I've now got to the point where my mum and dad will pay for a ticket because, I mean, that sounds. Give me the sales. Yeah, well, she paid to see me in Sydney, but then the show got cancelled. So it was just a big kerfuffle in the end anyway, because I had to refund her. You owe her one. I mean, you arguably owe quite a bit. She gave your life. Yeah, look. She did. She did.

didn't she? But anyway, she's on the accomplice now. Good for her. They're very limited accomplice. You're square. Are we sure we're done with Central West Interior? Look, we're never done. We told you, Anne.

We didn't we tell you about the bidding war? Did we feel you in a previous podcast about this? No, please. I don't know if it's still going. Oh, true. We should probably mention it just to sort of check in. Basically, there's a bidding war over a visit from us, which makes me think, I mean, it makes me feel really bad for the Central West

as a region, that the notion of bidding over the chase of visiting, the podcast visiting. Can I come on the tour? Yes. Well, you should. And so how did it start? Was it? Oh, so basically I got off it.

They, you know how Bathis do all those really cool little tourismy campaigns. And they were like, they emailed me and they were like, we want to make you a Bathurst hero because of course it's like baddest hero. That's why you're not like slagging off the town anymore. I'm like, why is she being? Because there's so much, there's so much rich material in slagging off Bathist and you're being like, but they're so nice. Oh, I think it's going. It's pay for play. Yeah, yeah.

You're an official ambassador. I didn't get paid. But they were like, do you want to tell us your favorite places to go? And honestly, for me, I was like, I'm so sick of people saying, you know, Mount Panorama and like car stuff that I actually was like, actually, yeah, I will share my favorite cafes and my favorite places to go. So I did that. And then I mentioned it on the podcast and then all of a sudden, orange tourism got involved

and they emailed me going, oh, they emailed the chase. They emailed us, yeah, yeah, yeah. Going, oh, Gabby thinks that she's going to paint Bathurst in this light. Well, orange is better. And if you want to know why, we'll offer you a weekend. and away, we'll do this and this and this and this and the wineries and all this. Accommodation and wine tours and all that. It was quite impressive.

What have you walked into? And then Bathers got back to me and they said, well, well, well, look who wants a slice of the Gabby Bolt Pie? Are you comfortable with being known as the Gabby Bolt Pie, by the way? But anyway, they were like, oh, you know, we'll offer you a museum tour and like a car tour. And like if you want a hot lap and if you want to do look at winery and like a brewery and all this shit. So then Bath is going involved.

I don't think Cowra at one point? Kara, from out of nowhere, Kara entered the debate. Yeah, late entry. It's like a fucking sick little tour we've got lined up. And we haven't heard from Forbes or Parks. I was going to say,

you want me to low-key reach out to Mudgee as well. Absolutely. I used to play Mudgee all the time. Yeah, Mudgee, what's a fun little place. Mudgie, we did to you. So at some point we're going to pay this off and do a week of shows.

I reckon, yeah. Podcasts from these places, possibly from pubs, I would suggest. We should do the pub tour. We should do the whole. Every night and see which gets the biggest. crowd throughout like a central west tour which i've actually done previously in broadcasting and it was great fun because every every single place you went to uh you have the same

sort of spill from the locals about you got to understand this is like our town it's the perfect balance of all everything that the big city has yeah um with no traffic yeah that's exactly that's every single time like there's nothing like orange for gourmet food and why but there's no traffic lights i'm kind of like yeah it's not quite the same I don't want to disorient it's a nice place, but it's not exactly the same as Sydney. Oh, careful now. They'll take away their offer. There are some subtle differences.

There are some beautiful places. But the thing is, the beautiful places are never pitched to the tourists. We're going to go. We'll go there. You can show us the local highlights and should come to. And Jan and me and Bathurst would be so funny. I'll provide the journalistic balance to this. You know, you're already like.

I'll get maggoted at the Dudley. But you're like, it's so nice. It's so nice. I will tell the truth about Bathurst. I will, and then, you know, retain the integrity of your podcast. Yeah. Yeah, and the rest of us will be making fun of everything and be hated and probably run out of town. To be fair, I say it's so nice.

I didn't do much. I went to like five places, tops, and just circulated those. Well, lock it in. We were going to talk about joilingo. Well, fuck, we still can. I don't care. I think, have we got five? Fuck it.

So the last thing we want to cover before we, you know, get your bids in now, central west town. Get your bids in now. It's podcast at chaser.com. I think is our email address. If you want to make a bid, mudgy, we're waiting, standing by the email waiting for you. The last thing I want to raise is, because not only do the two of you have the Central West in common, and this is something I'm actually into as well, is duolingo. And we've talked about this before.

But Gabby has been on a really unusual duo lingo journey over the past few months. Gabby, how are you going with your studies of the world's most topical language? The dirty little owl betrayed me. I, yeah, I got Duolingo, and I got Duolingo plus. I splurged. Oh, yeah. Because I make too many mistakes. I'm on that plus dime.

Yeah, yeah. Fuck, yeah. It can't ask me for dollars anymore. It's great. But yeah, I, in January, I was like, you know what? New Year knew me? I'm going to learn a language. I'm not bilingual in anything.

I want to learn a language. And so I picked Ukrainian because I just watched Chernobyl. And I was like, I want to understand the original tapes of Shinobo. The famously easy and useful Ukrainian language. Yeah. So I learned the entire syrily alphabet. Good on you, that's impressive. And, yeah, I can't remember a lot of it off the top of my head.

But if I were to see Ukrainian, they can read it, I just don't know what it says. If I had a BB gun. Yeah. And so then I got really into it, and I got pretty good for, like, the first month. I was really, like, on it. I did it for about an hour every day. Have you stopped? Well, the last couple weeks, it's felt a bit.

Just going, Gabby, you're letting yourself down. It's, yeah. You've disgraced me. But if I look at it, I just kind of do that, you know, sharp inhale. Like, oh, I really hope this language is still okay. We're going to need it because you know there's going to have to be a sequel to Chernobyl right now. I'm terrified that I'm going to open the app one day and it's going to go, you're learning Russian now.

Like, this isn't. We've cancelled Ukrainian. Yeah, I'm terrified. But, yeah, I can say, where is my cat? I can't say it out at the top of my head now. I just know that cat is kit, which makes me laugh a lot. That's, that's, okay, we've learned something for today's podcast. Yeah, I'm going, yeah, Stokit, which is who is cat.

The pressure of duolingo is quite... I mean, Gabby's evidently resistant to having to go back, but I can't. Whenever it gets to about quarter to midnight, if I haven't done my duolingo, I just... I panic, I worry about my streak. Yeah.

And the little pop-up cartoon characters shame me. Yeah. They shame me into boxing. They're horrible. They're my tormentors now. So the duolingo owl has been on something of a PR blitz. Oh. Because there was a representation that emerged on the...

internet of the duolingo owl as as a well no that's the counterstrike but the oh shit but really i mean you know you all know about how rude the duolingo owl can be and absolutely we're coming i'm coming for you i'm coming for your family i'm coming to kill you i'm going to come kill you so you have this you have this sort of strain of incredibly dark content concerning the duolingo owl all these um memes like a rash of memes featuring duo the owl with like a knife or a gun saying some sinister shit. Yeah, do your practice or I'll cut you. Or I'll cut you right open.

Predictive Google questions, if you start typing in like is Google, you get, is, sorry, is duo, is duo a killer a killer a killer a killer of pure evil? So that's the top answer on the internet if you kind of go down that path. So, you know, the duolingo owl has this, I think, quite well-earned reputation as a sinister a nightmare. And then you have a small legion of social media professionals who've been hired by Duolingo to, I guess, animate this, well, it's like a big fluffy owl, right? Like an owl suit, and they've been putting it on people.

And the Duolingo owl, like, there's all these TikTok videos of it being like this sassy, fierce, loyal, cool friend, like dancing to Taylor Swift songs and just like being kind of a sweetheart and like having cool, cool values. Relatable. More sinister, like to go on, you know, this sort of propaganda mission, like this Russian-style propaganda mission to be like, no, I'm not evil. I would never kill your family. Who said I would?

That's not me. Where do they even live? Bathurst Falls, tell me. She only goes just denatifying the content. They're just denatifying the content. So, look, I have to say that I personally am more persuaded by the evil duo strain of thought than the, you know, relatable, sassy, fierce. loyal owl that you can trust on your TikTok feed.

But didn't you say, and there were actually some phrases? Well, this is the thing. That you asked you to translate into French or whatever. I have this lived experience where it's more, it's more than just the threats, right? It's like, because I got really into it. That was like my pandemic hobby. Yeah, me too. And it starts out just being like, and I'm learning French.

And it starts out just being like, you know, just like inane nonsense, like, please pass the cheese. Yeah. And then before long, it gets oddly specific and mean. until it's just like one in three is just this really hectic neg and you're like why do you think I need to learn that like yeah like LReste celibaté total which means she stayed single her whole life I'm like oh man okay thank you so useful I got I don't comprehend why you plue which means I don't understand why you're crying

oh because you because you hurt me you because I'm terrified of me brutal yeah You're very Triste Which means You've been very sad Since the death of your rat And for Gabby That's particularly

No It's an allusion To a ratatooey thing I'm actually fine Since the death of that You were cheering You've been very content It was sad for a month

And now I'm like I'm glad I got away from that I got a lot Which means Is she? Oh my God. Which is like, well, you just don't ever want it to be ambiguous, do you? You want to be dead, you want to be alive, you don't want it there to be a question mark.

Is she dead? Is that like, go on a trip to Paris, day one, content, like the phrases you're going to need. Is she dead? Is it a lot? Yeah, I mean, it's possible. You sound there are a plus in form with du machaise, which means you will seem fitter with makeup, which is just so savage. I was already wearing makeup when it said this to me as well.

I was like, I don't know what to think. Also, it's an owl. And this is my favorite of all. Why are you onto your, which means why are you ashamed of yourself? I wish I knew. Not are you ashamed of yourself. Why are you? Yeah, they've just skipped right to that.

They know. They know that I am. So, yeah, I don't know what the moral of the story is here. I guess, you know, just beware, be careful. You know, maybe do some, like, say some, have some, um, uh, you know, nice things that you say to yourself in the mirror before you, and maybe after you do your dualingo lesson, but do do it or he's coming for your family.

Yeah, yeah. I've got to get on that. All right, you can check out Andrew's show. At the Melbourne Comedy Festival in April, you're playing Sydney? Yes, I am. I'm doing Sydney Comedy Festival as well. I'm doing five dates in early May. Early years.

Thanks for coming on. My absolute pleasure. Angela Bupier there, check out her show. Aggies from Road. I'm still thinking about the fucking owl. Now say it in French. Which bit? All of the outro.

Our equipment We have to road microphone and we are a part of the rezone of Acast. What the fuck? If you'd asked me to do that, I would have just been able to say milk and honey. I'll cut that.

Mied de Moloco. I've learned only food stuff so far. Agu's from Red Micrones are part of the Acast, Crater Network, and Duolingo wants you dead. You better