Asger Risom
A bluntly named Chinese app that asks users to confirm they are alive has gone viral among young people living alone, reflecting growing fears of isolation in urban China.
In China’s fast-growing cities, millions of young people are living alone, far from family and traditional support networks.
A new app with a deliberately unsettling premise has tapped into those anxieties, quickly becoming one of the country’s most talked-about digital tools.
A product that once launched quietly is now forcing a conversation about isolation, safety and how technology is stepping in where social structures are thinning.
A simple idea
The app is called Are You Dead?, and its function is deliberately blunt. Users must check in regularly by pressing a large button to confirm they are alive.
If they fail to do so, the app contacts a designated emergency contact to warn that something may be wrong. It was launched in May last year with little attention, before surging in popularity in recent weeks.
The timing coincides with a sharp rise in one-person households. According to research cited by Chinese state media outlet Global Times, China could have up to 200 million people living alone by 2030.
Fear of being unseen
The app markets itself as a “safety company companion” for people living alone, including office workers, students and others choosing a solitary lifestyle.
On Chinese social media, one user wrote: “People who live alone at any stage of their life need something like this, as do introverts, those with depression, the unemployed and others in vulnerable situations.”
Another added: “There is a fear that people living alone might die unnoticed, with no one to call for help. I sometimes wonder, if I died alone, who would collect my body?”
Living alone
Wilson Hou, 38, downloaded the app while working away from his family in Beijing. He returns home to his wife and child twice a week but often sleeps at a rented site near his project.
“I worry that if something happened to me, I could die alone in the place I rent and no-one would know,” he said. “That’s why I downloaded the app and I set my mum as my emergency contact.”
Hou said he rushed to download it early, fearing it might be banned because of its grim name.
Name controversy
The app’s title has drawn criticism from some users who say it feels ominous or unlucky. Others have suggested alternatives such as “Are you ok?” or “How are you?”
The company behind the app, Moonscape Technologies, has said it is considering a name change. The current title is a wordplay in Chinese, echoing the sound of a popular food delivery app.
Rapid growth
Now listed internationally under the name Demumu, the app ranks near the top of paid utility charts in several countries, likely driven by Chinese users abroad.
Originally free, it now costs 8 yuan ($1.15). Its founders, three people born after 1995, say it cost about 1,000 yuan to build.
They have since said they plan to raise funds and are exploring a version aimed at elderly users, as China’s population continues to age.
Sources: BBC News, Global Times
