That's the importance of doing experiments and paying attention to stats.
Ever since implementing the Roasty slides, my convertion rates dropped to 10%. Only 2 new members this week, despite being very active on skool. And one person churned as soon as I made the post introducing him.
I still love the dragon, but he will stay hidden as an inside joke and also be mentioned on posts around classifieds and will still have a use in my social media plan. Roasty is fun and fun is a big part of why this is working for me.
But Skool needs to be simple. Stupid simple. If people don't get what you're about in a few seconds they're out. You're actually penalized for being clever here. Mascot branding just complicated a brand that was already working for it's simplicity.
By the way this is a "Roast my Lesson" post. Feel free to bring your own point of view on that and disagree with me.