A morbidly named mobile app, 'Are You Dead?', has climbed to the top of Apple's paid charts in China and gone global, becoming one of the top-paid utility apps in the UK, US, Singapore and Hong Kong. The app, known as Sile Me in Chinese and Demumu internationally, offers a daily check-in feature that sends an email to a pre-selected emergency contact if a user fails to check in for two consecutive days.
For a cost of 8 yuan (£0.85), the app provides a sense of security to millions of people living alone. The developer describes it as a 'lightweight safety tool' designed to 'establish invisible safety protection through check-in monitoring and emergency contact mechanisms to make solitary life more reassuring'.
The app's popularity reflects growing anxieties about dying unnoticed in China, where single-person households accounted for 19.5 per cent of all homes in 2024, up from 7.8 per cent two decades earlier. The country is projected to have up to 200 million one-person households by 2030, driven by rising numbers of young people choosing to live alone and an ageing population left isolated.
Developed by a small startup of three co-founders born after 1995, the app experienced a viral surge that triggered a more than 100-fold spike in downloads, driving up server costs. The team plans to sell 10 per cent of the company to raise 1m yuan (£10,600) and is considering renaming the app after criticism of its morbid title.
'We feel honoured and deeply grateful to receive such widespread attention,' the team said in a statement. New features, including messaging tools and more elderly-friendly functions, are also in development.
