China’s currently most popular payment app sounds like a morbid joke. “Are you dead?” is the question asked by the rapidly growing number of users of the online platform “Sile ma”. The principle is simple: you have to press a virtual button every day that proves you are still alive. If the user misses the deadline twice in a row, an automatic message is sent to a self-selected emergency contact.
The Internet trend reflects a serious social change. Chinese society is not only aging rapidly, but is also increasingly aging in some cases. The figures from the National Statistics Office are clear: the population has been shrinking for several years Chinas. And a fifth of all Chinese currently live in single households, and the trend is rising.
The phenomenon of “lonely dead” has long existed in East Asian countries; in Japan, for example, they are called “Kodukushi”. Older men are disproportionately affected and die quietly and secretly after years of depression and alcoholism. Their bodies are often only found weeks, sometimes months, later. It is not uncommon for there to be no relatives to take care of the funeral.
But the Chinese app “Are You Dead?” is primarily aimed at millennials in precarious living conditions. So those who suffer from exceptional psychological stateshave withdrawn from social life after years of unsuccessful job searching or live in anonymous capsule apartments. “Alone, but not lonely,” says the description from the app developers, “your safety companion.”
Hit a nerve
The app’s provocative title has clearly struck a chord with Chinese youth. With irony and lots of dark humor, users debate their increasingly isolated life situations. “My parents tell me: If you don’t get married, there might not be anyone who will even notice when you die,” comments a young Chinese woman on the online platform Douyin. “I replied: That’s why I downloaded this app.”
Chinese youth have been suffering from record high unemployment for several years – and are dreaming of withdrawing from the social hamster wheel. “Tang Ping” (in German: “lying flat”) sums up the zeitgeist of Gen Z. The catchphrase that became popular during the corona pandemic describes the exact opposite of what the party leadership demands of its offspring: tighten their belts and sacrifice themselves for the good of the nation.
It remains to be seen whether “Are you dead?” in the coming weeks Chinese internet censorship falls victim. Of course, the app does not shed a good light on the current state of Chinese society.
Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the party newspaper Global Times and still the country’s most influential political commentator, has suggested that the developers should change the name of the app – from “Are You Dead?” to “Are you alive?”
So far, little is known about the creative minds behind the software, which costs around one euro to register. According to local reports, they are three Chinese people in their 20s who live in the city of Zhengzhou.
The development of the app is said to have only cost around 1,000 renminbi, which is less than 150 euros. Since then, its value has increased many times over: the developers plan to sell 10 percent of the app for one million renminbi (around 150,000 euros).