Every social product needs a screenshot moment that can turn the user’s progress into shareable status symbols.

I was listening to a podcast with the CTO of Duolingo yesterday. He mentioned how obsessed people are with streaks on the app.

It was the same with Snapchat Streaks. I was never a Snapchat user, but I still remember how much people used to talk about them. Kids wouldn’t just send snaps, they were obsessed over maintaining streaks. People would even give friends their login info before going on vacation, just to make sure the streak didn’t break.

When there was this power outage in Portugal, Duolingo had to let people there continue their streaks because a lot of them were upset about losing their streak due to something not in their control.

These streaks, basically anything you can screenshot and be flexed online, are the ultimate growth loop. And smart products like Duolingo know it. That’s why they double down on shareable elements: streaks, XP badges, leaderboard rankings, and now, a fluency score you can post on LinkedIn to tell the world how good your German is. Yes, the CTO mentioned that they are coming with a score for language learners.

Nobody knows what “Intermediate Spanish” or “Limited Working Proficiency” means anyway. A 90/100 score in German is easier to brag about.

All the stuff that keeps popping up on my timeline —

  • Fasty’s fasting screenshots
  • Whoop’s biological age vs actual age
  • Strava’s heat maps
  • Hevy’s weightlifting dashboards comparing your lifts to “a jet”

All of these are the same thing.

It’s signalling.

If I were building any consumer product in fitness, health, education, or productivity, I’d work backwards from this question: What’s the most impressive thing my users could screenshot and post on social media?

Think distribution first.

That’s how someone finds out there’s an app that tells you your biological age. That’s how people get curious about their own fluency score or fasting streak or mental fitness level. Nobody sits around thinking “what do my lifts compare to,” but if their friend posts a screenshot saying “yours is like lifting a truck”, people get curious to track their lifts too.

These things aren’t just fun, they’re retention mechanics disguised as social proof:

  • Streaks trigger loss aversion: This is why Duolingo has one of the best retention metrics in consumer apps
  • Scores create comparability: Every TBPN podcast has a section where the hosts compare their 8Sleep sleep scores
  • Maps, charts, badges make progress visible: The Saturday morning runs on Twitter

They’re free marketing too.

All of these show up on your feed without the company spending a dime. And each one makes you wonder: should I also be doing this?

If you’re building a social product, don’t just focus on features. Focus on status objects. The screenshot. The thing that people will share on x dot com.

And if you do it right, people will do your marketing for you.