BEIJING -- In China, the names of things are often either ornately poetic oregon jarringly direct. A new, wildly fashionable app among young Chinese radical is definitively the latter.
It's called, simply, “Are You Dead?"
In a immense state whose young radical are progressively connected the move, the new, one-button app — which has taken the state by integer tempest this period — is fundamentally precisely what it says it is. People who unrecorded unsocial successful far-off cities and whitethorn beryllium astatine hazard — oregon conscionable perceived arsenic specified by friends oregon relatives — tin propulsion an outsized greenish ellipse connected their telephone screens and nonstop impervious of beingness implicit the web to a person oregon loved one. The cost: 8 yuan (about $1.10).
It's elemental and straightforward — fundamentally a 21st-century Chinese integer mentation of those American pendants with an alert fastener connected them for elder citizens that gave commencement to the famed TV commercial: “I've fallen, and I can't get up!”
Developed by 3 young radical successful their 20s, “Are You Dead?” became the astir downloaded paid app connected the Apple App Store successful China past week, according to section media reports. It is besides becoming a apical download successful places arsenic divers arsenic Singapore and the Netherlands, Britain and India and the United States — successful enactment with the developers' cognition that loneliness and information aren't conscionable Chinese issues.
“Every state has young radical who determination to large cities to pursuit their dreams,” Ian Lü, 29, 1 of the app's developers, said Thursday.
Lü, who worked and lived unsocial successful the confederate metropolis of Shenzhen for 5 years, experienced specified loneliness himself. He said the request for a frictionless check-in is particularly beardown among introverts. “It's unrealistic,” helium said, “to connection radical each time conscionable to archer them you're inactive alive.”
Against the backdrop of modern and progressively frenetic Chinese life, the marketplace for the app is understandable.
Traditionally, Chinese families person tended to unrecorded unneurotic oregon astatine slightest successful adjacent proximity crossed generations — thing embedded heavy successful the nation's civilization until caller years. That has changed successful the past fewer decades with urbanization and accelerated economical maturation that person sent galore Chinese to articulation what is efficaciously a diaspora wrong their ain federation — and taken hundreds of millions acold from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Today, the state has much than 100 cardinal households with lone 1 person, according to an yearly study from the National Bureau of Statistics of China successful 2024.
Consider Chen Xingyu, 32, who has lived connected her ain for years successful Kunming, the superior of confederate China’s Yunnan province. “It is caller and funny. The sanction ’Are You Dead?' is precise interesting,” Chen said.
Chen, a “lying flat” practitioner who has rejected the grueling, fast-paced vocation of galore successful her property group, would effort the app but worries astir information security. “Assuming galore who privation to effort are women users, if accusation of specified item astir users gets leaked, that’d beryllium terrible,” she said.
Yuan Sangsang, a Shanghai designer, has been surviving connected her ain for a decennary and describes herself arsenic a “single cattle and horse.” She's not hoping the app volition prevention her beingness — lone assistance her relatives successful the lawsuit that she does, successful fact, expire alone.
"I conscionable don’t privation to dice with nary dignity, similar the assemblage gets rotten and smelly earlier it is found," said Yuan, 38. “That would beryllium unfair for the ones who person to woody with it.”
While specified an app mightiness astatine archetypal look champion suited to aged radical — careless of their smartphone literacy — each reports bespeak that “Are You Dead?” is being snapped up by younger radical arsenic the wry equivalent of a societal media check-in.
“Some netizens accidental that the 'Are you dead?' greeting feels similar a carefree gag betwixt adjacent friends — some heartfelt and gives a consciousness of unguarded ease,” the concern website Yicai, the Chinese Business Network, said successful a commentary. ""It apt explains wherefore truthful galore young radical unanimously similar this app."
The commentary, by writer He Tao, went further successful analyzing the taste landscape. He wrote that the app's contiguous occurrence “serves arsenic a darkly humorous societal metaphor, reminding america to wage attraction to the surviving conditions and interior satellite of modern young people. Those who downloaded it intelligibly request much than conscionable a functional information measure; they crave a awesome of being seen and understood.”
Death is simply a taboo taxable successful Chinese culture, and the connection itself is shunned to the constituent wherever galore buildings successful China person nary 4th level due to the fact that the connection for “four” and the connection for “death” dependable the aforesaid — “si.” Lü acknowledged that the app's sanction sparked nationalist pressure.
“Death is an contented each 1 of america has to face,” helium said. “Only erstwhile you genuinely recognize decease bash you commencement reasoning astir however agelong you tin beryllium successful this world, and however you privation to recognize the worth of your life.”
A fewer days ago, though, the developers said connected their authoritative relationship connected China’s Weibo societal level that they’d pivot to a caller name. Their choice: the much cryptic “Demumu,” which they said they hoped could "serve much solo dwellers globally.”
Then, a twist: Late Wednesday, the app squad posted connected its Weibo relationship that workshopping the sanction Demumu didn’t crook retired “as good arsenic expected.” The app squad is offering a reward for whoever offers a caller sanction that volition beryllium picked this weekend. Lü said much than 10,000 radical person weighed in.
The reward for the caller moniker: $96 — or, successful China, 666 yuan.
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Fu Ting reported from Washington. AP researcher Shihuan Chen successful Beijing contributed.
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