Hi everyone-
A new app from a Chinese company requires users to check in once per day and affirm that they are not dead. If you fail to check in for more than two days in a row, the app alerts your emergency contact and instructs them to check on you in person.
The app is called Are You Dead Yet and has overtones of the formerly ubiquitous phrase "are we there yet," but it definitely hits different. The developer, a Gen Z by the name of Guo (last name only), said of the app "When I looked at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I saw that safety needs are deeper and apply to a much broader group of people. That felt like a good direction."
It's the number one paid app on China's app store and people globally are jumping aboard, too. Everyone apparently is desperate to tell the machine "no, I'm not dead yet." Maybe the affirmation of life is even more for the user to affirm their own lifeness to themselves.
Note to self: Yes, I am alive. Maybe there should be a follow-up button with: when was the last time you spoke to a human being in person? When was the last time you touched grass? So far investors want in, Guo says, he's been offered heaps of cash for shares of parent company Moonscape Technologies, which is a pretty good name for a company honestly. They're changing the name of the app though, to Demumu, which is a combo of "death" and something about those demonic Labubu dolls. I would only download it if it were called Are You Dead Yet, I think. For something like that euphemisms really defeat the purpose.
I guess we're all just really alone most of the time, or else we wouldn't need an app like this. I thought about it myself, and there are not lots of people I see regularly in person. I talk to friends and family, sure, not that much, but I do. I wonder if anyone would notice—other than work and my son—if I stopped responding for two days. So many people live alone, make dinner for one, use big SUVs to transport just the driver, that it's no wonder an app confirming life took off.
Maybe we're all wondering, am I dead yet? Are you? My grandmother used to affirm life by kibbitzing with cashiers at stores. I used to think it was weird, but now I look for that human connection too, and my son thinks it's weird.
Libby