A lady seems at her smartphone in a restaurant in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15. AP-Yonhap
BEIJING — In China, the names of issues are sometimes both ornately poetic or jarringly direct. A brand new, wildly widespread app amongst younger Chinese language folks is definitively the latter.
It is known as, merely, “Are You Useless?”
In an enormous nation whose younger individuals are more and more on the transfer, the brand new, one-button app — which has taken the nation by digital storm this month — is actually precisely what it says it’s. Individuals who stay alone in far-off cities and could also be in danger — or simply perceived as such by pals or kinfolk — can push an outsized inexperienced circle on their telephone screens and ship proof of life over the community to a pal or cherished one. The price: 8 yuan (about $1.10).
It is easy and simple — primarily a Twenty first-century Chinese language digital model of these American pendants with an alert button on them for senior residents that gave beginning to the famed TV industrial: “I’ve fallen, and I am unable to rise up!”
Developed by three younger folks of their 20s, “Are You Useless?” turned essentially the most downloaded paid app on the Apple App Retailer in China final week, based on native media reviews. It is usually turning into a prime obtain in locations as various as Singapore and the Netherlands, Britain and India and the US — in keeping with the builders’ perspective that loneliness and security aren’t simply Chinese language points.
“Each nation has younger individuals who transfer to large cities to chase their desires,” Ian Lü, 29, one of many app’s builders, mentioned Thursday.
Lü, who labored and lived alone within the southern metropolis of Shenzhen for 5 years, skilled such loneliness himself. He mentioned the necessity for a frictionless check-in is very sturdy amongst introverts. “It is unrealistic,” he mentioned, “to message folks day-after-day simply to inform them you are still alive.”
Towards the backdrop of contemporary and more and more frenetic Chinese language life, the marketplace for the app is comprehensible.
Historically, Chinese language households have tended to stay collectively or at the very least in shut proximity throughout generations — one thing embedded deep within the nation’s tradition till current years. That has modified in the previous couple of a long time with urbanization and speedy financial progress which have despatched many Chinese language to affix what’s successfully a diaspora inside their very own nation — and brought lots of of hundreds of thousands removed from mother and father, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
In the present day, the nation has greater than 100 million households with just one individual, based on an annual report from the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics of China in 2024.
Contemplate Chen Xingyu, 32, who has lived on her personal for years in Kunming, the capital of southern China’s Yunnan province. “It’s new and humorous. The title ’Are You Useless?’ could be very fascinating,” Chen mentioned.
Chen, a “mendacity flat” practitioner who has rejected the grueling, fast-paced profession of many in her age group, would strive the app however worries about information safety. “Assuming many who wish to strive are girls customers, if info of such element about customers will get leaked, that’d be horrible,” she mentioned.
Yuan Sangsang, a Shanghai designer, has been dwelling on her personal for a decade and describes herself as a “single cow and horse.” She’s not hoping the app will save her life — solely assist her kinfolk within the occasion that she does, actually, expire alone.
“I simply don’t wish to die with no dignity, just like the physique will get rotten and smelly earlier than it’s discovered,” mentioned Yuan, 38. “That may be unfair for those who need to take care of it.”
Whereas such an app may at first appear finest suited to aged folks — no matter their smartphone literacy — all reviews point out that “Are You Useless?” is being snapped up by youthful folks because the wry equal of a social media check-in.
“Some netizens say that the ‘Are you lifeless?’ greeting seems like a carefree joke between shut pals — each heartfelt and offers a way of unguarded ease,” the enterprise web site Yicai, the Chinese language Enterprise Community, mentioned in a commentary. “”It possible explains why so many younger folks unanimously like this app.”
The commentary, by author He Tao, went additional in analyzing the cultural panorama. He wrote that the app’s rapid success “serves as a darkly humorous social metaphor, reminding us to concentrate to the dwelling circumstances and inside world of up to date younger folks. Those that downloaded it clearly want greater than only a practical safety measure; they crave a sign of being seen and understood.”
Loss of life is a taboo topic in Chinese language tradition, and the phrase itself is shunned to the purpose the place many buildings in China don’t have any fourth flooring as a result of the phrase for “4” and the phrase for “demise” sound the identical — “si.” Lü acknowledged that the app’s title sparked public stress.
“Loss of life is a matter each considered one of us has to face,” he mentioned. “Solely whenever you actually perceive demise do you begin desirous about how lengthy you may exist on this world, and the way you wish to understand the worth of your life.”
Early Friday, the app had disappeared from Apple’s App Retailer in China, at the very least in the interim. The builders would not say why, solely that the incident “occurred immediately.”
Just a few days in the past, although, the builders mentioned on their official account on China’s Weibo social platform that they’d be pivoting to a brand new title. Their selection: the extra cryptic “Demumu,” which they mentioned they hoped may “serve extra solo dwellers globally.”
Then, a twist: Late Wednesday, the app crew posted on its Weibo account that workshopping the title Demumu didn’t end up “in addition to anticipated.” The app crew is providing a reward for whoever provides a brand new title that might be picked this weekend. Lü mentioned greater than 10,000 folks have weighed in.
The reward for the brand new moniker: $96 — or, in China, 666 yuan.
