An indie app with just one operate is at present all the rage in China. It’s known as si le ma (死了吗), which interprets actually to “Are You Lifeless But.” The app asks customers to faucet a button as soon as daily, and in the event that they fail to take action for 2 consecutive days, it mechanically sends an electronic mail to a delegated emergency contact, urging them to verify on the consumer in particular person.
Guo, one of many three Gen-Z builders behind Are You Lifeless But, says he has been constructing social and leisure apps for a couple of years. However he needed to pivot to one thing more fundamental. “After I checked out Maslow’s Hierarchy of Wants, I noticed that security wants are deeper and apply to a much wider group of individuals. That felt like a great route,” Guo instructed WIRED in an unique interview. (He requested to solely be recognized by his final identify for privateness causes.)
The app’s sensible performance and the darkish humor its identify evokes have struck a chord with younger individuals in China, who swarmed to obtain it over the previous week. On the time of publication, Are You Lifeless But was the primary paid app within the Chinese language model of Apple’s App Retailer. It is usually climbing the rankings in abroad app retailer charts, despite the fact that Guo says he hasn’t spent a dime on paid promoting. “We don’t have that sort of cash,” he explains.
Guo tells WIRED that the staff has been contacted by over 60 buyers since Are You Lifeless But blew up on social media, and they’re in lively conversations about fundraising. He claims that some buyers have already supplied tens of millions of Chinese language yuan—a whole bunch of hundreds of US {dollars}—for a stake in its guardian firm, Moonscape Applied sciences, which has launched only a handful of apps to this point. The staff expects to announce the outcomes of the fundraising talks in a couple of weeks. “We knew there can be some traction, however the scale of this fully exceeded our expectations,” Guo says.
Guo and his colleagues initially charged customers a one-time cost of 1 RMB ($0.14) to make use of the app; amid the heightened consideration this week, they raised the worth to eight RMB ($1.15), nonetheless a minimal quantity contemplating there’s no subscription required. Whereas Guo declined to reveal how a lot cash the app has made and what number of lively customers it has, he says the cash they’ve earned to this point will go towards growing the platform for the long run.
Are You Lifeless But has caught on significantly amongst individuals who stay alone. The common dimension of a Chinese language household has shrunk dramatically over the previous few a long time. Based on a 2020 nationwide census, 25.4 % of households consisted of only one particular person, up from 14.5 % a decade earlier. Whereas aged individuals stay the almost definitely to stay alone, there’s a rising cohort of youthful individuals dwelling a solo way of life, and Chinese language companies are more and more catering to this demographic by providing digital or bodily companionship providers.
On Tuesday, the builders introduced on Chinese language social media that Are You Lifeless But would formally change its identify to “Demumu” so as to higher serve the worldwide market. That identify, which was additionally used for the app’s abroad model beforehand, was impressed by one other Chinese language enterprise success. Guo says Demumu is a mix of the phrase “loss of life” and the naming sample of Labubu, the Chinese language plushie monster that went viral globally last year.
Followers of the app usually are not thrilled. Even earlier than the announcement, they’d been asking the builders to not change the blunt identify, which was half the enchantment. On Weibo, a Chinese language social platform, probably the most preferred remark below the identify change announcement reads, “Child, your earlier identify was the explanation you went viral.”
