A new app, with the somber name “Are You Dead?”, has taken China by storm. The concept is simple: it is “checking the point” every two days, clicking a big button, to confirm that you are alive. Otherwise, the app sends a message to the designated emergency contact.
Launched in China in May last year, without much fanfare, the popularity of the application “Are You Dead?” (“Did you die?”) has taken off in recent weeks in the country, where many young people who live alone have begun to download it en masse.
The concept of the app, which is now the paid application most downloaded in Chinait’s simple: after registering, the user has to click a button every two days to confirm that, in fact, is still alive.
If two days pass without the user showing signs of life, the application sends a notification to your emergency contactwhich is set in the app’s settings, to alert you that you may need help — or a funeral director.
According to estimates by research institutes cited by the Chinese state newspaper, the number of single-person households in China can reach 200 million by 2030.
And it is precisely these people who are the target of the application, which is described as a “security company… whether you are a lonely office worker, a student living away from home, or anyone who chooses a solitary lifestyle.”
“People who live alone at any stage of life need something like this, such as introverts, those with depressionthe unemployed and others in vulnerable situations”, said a user on Chinese social media.
“There is a fear that people who live alone can die without anyone noticing, with no one to ask for help. Sometimes I ask myself: if I died alone, who would come and get my body?” said another.
Wilson Hou, 38-year-old, who lives around 100 km from his family, tells us that this is precisely why he downloaded the app.
Hou works in the country’s capital, Beijing. Goes home twice a weekto be with his wife and son, but he states that he has to be away from them at the moment to work on a project, and most days he sleeps there.
“I worry that, if something happened to meI could die alone in the place I rent and no one would know“, says Hou. “That’s why I downloaded the app and I set my mother as an emergency contact“.
Hou highlights that downloaded the application quickly after its release, out of fear that would be banned due to negative connotations associated with it.
Some were quick to criticize the application’s less than cheerful namestating that subscribing to it could bring bad luck. Others called for it to be changed to something with a more positive connotation, such as “Are you okay?” or “How are you?”
Although the success of this application is due, in part, to its name captivating, the company behind the application, , said it was taking into account criticism of the name and consider a possible name change.
The application, which in China is called Deleteis currently among the two most downloaded paid utility apps in the US, Singapore and Hong Kong, and in the top four in Australia and Spain – possibly driven by users Chinese living abroad.
The name is a game of words with a popular food delivery app “E-le-ma” (“Are you hungry?”), which, in Chinese, sounds similar to “Si-le-ma”.
