China’s “Are You Dead?” app mirrors rising urban loneliness, offering daily check-ins for users living alone amid social isolation.
In four years time, China will have nearly 200 million people living alone, usually far from home. The current figure is 125 million. Many are young people who have moved to the cities for work, and don’t know anybody, which can be unsettling for some, even suicidal for others.
Enter “Are You Dead?” an app built by a small three-person team Moonscape Technologies, that has climbed to the top of Apple’s paid app charts in China. It is designed for people living alone. Users check in daily, and if they fail to do so for two consecutive days, an email alert is sent to an emergency contact.
A Viral Response to Loneliness
It triggered a storm on Weibo, coming as it did when social media was debating the suicide by a 12-year-old boy who left a handwritten note detailing academic pressures, exhaustion and that he was being mocked. The app, in a sense, reflected that young people feel powerless to change their highly competitive environment.
The media focused on the findings of a project by the Beike Research Institute, which said that of the 200 million expected to be living alone by 2030, 40 million to 70 million would be young people between the ages of 20- to 39. Many joke about “dying at home with no one knowing,” but this is a real fear in a society that values marriage.
Some say there is a deeper, darker question: “Are You Dead?” is forcing people to ask themselves: who will notice if I disappear?
Controversy Over the Name
So should the name be changed. There’s a similar app called “Are You Alive?” which has already appeared on the Apple Store with a nearly identical check-in feature and is currently free to download, underlining how quickly emotional demand, rather than technical innovation, is driving this trend.
But the developers of Are You Dead don’t plan to change the name. Rather they believe that the popularity it is witnessing comes from real user demand, not publicity or hype. They also believe death should not be treated as a taboo subject.
The app was developed at a ridiculous cost of 1000 yuan (Rs 13,000) and they have plans to scale up as it finds takers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US. They are looking for 10 million yuan in funding. Money from the macabre!
