Sileme (Chinese -  死了么  - “Are They Dead”) A viral mobile phone app created by developer Moonscape Technologies Inc. which recently leapt to the  #1  spot on Apple’s paid download charts has been renamed Demumu according to a company Weibo post today.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/14/chinese-app-are-you-dead-to-change-name-after-surge-in-popularity

It’s a lightweight social safety tool aimed at an estimated 200 million people who may be living  in one-person households in China by 2030. The online tool which costs 8 Yuan ($1.15), or £0.99 on the UK Apple Store encourages users to log in once a day to confirm that they are still alive. If the user fails to log in on 2 consecutive days, then an automatic notification is sent to a designated emergency contact.

In a country with a population of around 1.4 billion, where a growing a number of seniors are living alone, the app has been welcomed by many social media users - “For the first time, someone is concerned about whether I’m dead or alive,” one wrote on the blogging platform Weibo.

The new name Demumu has no Chinese character equivalent. It is derived from a word play on the English word “Death” and the syllabic pattern of “Labubu” - a plushie monster and popular collectible toy from the Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung's "The Monsters" series, known for its mischievous grin, pointy ears, and big eyes, often sold as a furry elf in blind boxes by Pop Mart.

Edited January 14Jan 14 by toucana
corrected spacing in para. 3

26 minutes ago, toucana said:

Sileme (Chinese -  死了么  - “Are They Dead”) A viral mobile phone app created by developer Moonscape Technologies Inc. which recently leapt to the  #1  spot on Apple’s paid download charts has been renamed Demumu according to a company Weibo post today.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/14/chinese-app-are-you-dead-to-change-name-after-surge-in-popularity

It’s a lightweight social safety tool aimed at an estimated 200 million people who may be living  in one-person households in China by 2030. The online tool which costs 8 Yuan ($1.15), or £0.99 on the UK Apple Store encourages users to log in once a day to confirm that they are still alive. If the user fails to log in on 2 consecutive days, then an automatic notification is sent to a designated emergency contact.

In a country with a population of around 1.4 billion, where a growing a number of seniors are living alone, the app has been welcomed by many social media users - “For the first time, someone is concerned about whether I’m dead or alive,” one wrote on the blogging platform Weibo.

The new name Demumu has no Chinese character equivalent. It is derived from a word play on the English word “Death” and the syllabic pattern of “Labubu” - a plushie monster and popular collectible toy from the Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung's "The Monsters" series, known for its mischievous grin, pointy ears, and big eyes, often sold as a furry elf in blind boxes by Pop Mart.

What's the point of alerting emergency services to someone who has been dead for 48hrs? Much more useful, surely, would be an app that notifies a keyholder if the fridge door has not been opened for, say, 12hrs.

Edited January 14Jan 14 by exchemist

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

an app that notifies a keyholder if the fridge door has not been opened for, say, 12hrs

My app would activate every few days.
I'm at work 12 hours, for 7 days every 2 weeks.
Actually closer to 13 hours counting travel time.

Most phones have 'health' apps or motion detectors; if no activity is detected by the phone in 12 hours, it should message your contact.

Then again, I've been known to sleep for 12 hours as well ...

53 minutes ago, MigL said:

My app would activate every few days.
I'm at work 12 hours, for 7 days every 2 weeks.
Actually closer to 13 hours counting travel time.

Most phones have 'health' apps or motion detectors; if no activity is detected by the phone in 12 hours, it should message your contact.

Then again, I've been known to sleep for 12 hours as well ...

Oh that's interesting. So the phone app reacts if it is not moved for 12 hrs. That's very good - seems to do the job nicely. I might keep that in mind for a few years from now, to alert my son.

But that immediately raises the question of what the extra benefit is of this Chinese app.

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

Oh that's interesting. So the phone app reacts if it is not moved for 12 hrs. That's very good - seems to do the job nicely. I might keep that in mind for a few years from now, to alert my son.

But that immediately raises the question of what the extra benefit is of this Chinese app.

I think the viral spike in this app’s popularity is related to a number of cultural trends in mainland Chinese society. The average age of the population has been rising quite rapidly for some years because of the “one child per family” rules enacted in the PRC  between 1979 and 2015 which has led to a rise in ‘4-2-1’ family structures, and growing numbers of seniors living alone. Throughout the past decade, hundreds of millions of younger people have migrated from their hometowns to find work in distant megalopolises like Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, and Guangzhou leaving behind emptying rural villages and isolated elderly parents who feel particularly vulnerable when they become widowers.

“By 2050, more than 34% of China’s citizens are projected to be more than 60 years old, according to the country’s National Working Commission. That will amount to almost 500 million people, nearly twice as many as today.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/07/asia/china-elderly-people-new-year-intl

There has also been a dramatic decline in the number of new marriages in China which fell to a new low last year:

“Some 6.1 million couples registered their marriages in 2024, a plunge of 20.5% from the previous year, according to data released Saturday by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. It marks a record low since the ministry started releasing the statistics in 1986.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/10/china/china-marriage-registrations-record-low-2024-intl-hnk

This coupled with a plunging birth-rate has meant that unusually large numbers of younger people are living alone too, and up to 19.6%  of those aged between 16 and 24 are also likely to be unemployed according recent job stats :

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/30/economy/china-youth-unemployment-intl-hnk

All of which adds to a pervasive sense of anomie -  depression, anxiety and isolation among younger Chinese people - along with a morbid fear of living and dying alone.

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

So the phone app reacts if it is not moved for 12 hrs. That's very good - seems to do the job nicely. I might keep that in mind for a few years from now, to alert my son.

That assumes an elderly person keeps the phone on them, or remembers to grab it when they get up. And remembers to charge it. Seems to me there’s a significant chance of getting repeated alerts from a forgetful senior.

35 minutes ago, swansont said:

That assumes an elderly person keeps the phone on them, or remembers to grab it when they get up. And remembers to charge it. Seems to me there’s a significant chance of getting repeated alerts from a forgetful senior.

Good point. The app can't react if the battery is flat.

I like the fridge door idea because just about everyone living anywhere will open a fridge at least once in a 24hr period, even if they are ill and confined largely to bed.

Seems there are such things on the market: https://www.agespace.org/tech/elderly-monitoring-services

Edited January 14Jan 14 by exchemist

1 hour ago, swansont said:

That assumes an elderly person keeps the phone on them, or remembers to grab it when they get up. And remembers to charge it. Seems to me there’s a significant chance of getting repeated alerts from a forgetful senior.

Who are you calling a senior? I generally only use my phone during travel, the rare field trip or engagement events. Rest of the time I assume it is on the charger, though about 30% of the time it is not.

But that being said, I have heard of emergency toilet that integrate emergency systems. The old implementation are emergency buttons or similar (e.g. if folks cannot get up) but from a CES report, there is now one that detects if it hasn't been used for a prolonged time and can make calls for wellness checks. In a way that makes more sense, as toilets are more of a necessity than a cell phone (though I guess some folks my disagree).

Edit: found a link: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Vovo-Neo-smart-toilet-monitors-health-usage-and-safety.1183171.0.html

41 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Who are you calling a senior? I generally only use my phone during travel, the rare field trip or engagement events. Rest of the time I assume it is on the charger, though about 30% of the time it is not.

But that being said, I have heard of emergency toilet that integrate emergency systems. The old implementation are emergency buttons or similar (e.g. if folks cannot get up) but from a CES report, there is now one that detects if it hasn't been used for a prolonged time and can make calls for wellness checks. In a way that makes more sense, as toilets are more of a necessity than a cell phone (though I guess some folks my disagree).

Edit: found a link: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Vovo-Neo-smart-toilet-monitors-health-usage-and-safety.1183171.0.html

My father at the end of his life used to pee in a bottle, which was sometimes emptied in a sink rather than down the toilet. I still think a fridge is a more reliable test than a toilet.

Especially given that toilets can become entertainment devices for pets...

ABC11 Raleigh-Durham

VIDEO: Clever cat teaches himself how to flush the toilet

A Virginia man and his family were confused after learning that their water bill had drastically increased in just one month.

15 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Especially given that toilets can become entertainment devices for pets...

ABC11 Raleigh-Durham

VIDEO: Clever cat teaches himself how to flush the toilet

A Virginia man and his family were confused after learning that their water bill had drastically increased in just one month.

Faux GPTChat?

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Especially given that toilets can become entertainment devices for pets...

ABC11 Raleigh-Durham

VIDEO: Clever cat teaches himself how to flush the toilet

A Virginia man and his family were confused after learning that their water bill had drastically increased in just one month.

You know, it struck me that the development of all these things just shows how tech is helping us to be even more disconnected from each other. I mean, one could have a system which where actual humans are checking on the elderly.

15 minutes ago, CharonY said:

You know, it struck me that the development of all these things just shows how tech is helping us to be even more disconnected from each other. I mean, one could have a system which where actual humans are checking on the elderly.

We have exactly such system where I live. Hospital nurses visit daily elderly living alone.

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

one could have a system which where actual humans are checking on the elderly

I can see such a need for places where young people need to move away from their elderly parents ( as has been mentioned about China, and Southern Italy which I'm familiar with ) in order to find employment, but why are their families abandoning their parents, or sending them into retirement homes in places like the US and Canada ?
Parents deserve better than an app; their families should care for them.

"Ah, look at all the lonely people"

4 hours ago, MigL said:

I can see such a need for places where young people need to move away from their elderly parents ( as has been mentioned about China, and Southern Italy which I'm familiar with ) in order to find employment, but why are their families abandoning their parents, or sending them into retirement homes in places like the US and Canada ?
Parents deserve better than an app; their families should care for them.

In China there is conflict between the modern day economic pressures that drive younger people to leave their native villages to seek work in far-flung megalopolises, and a core Confucian value called Xiao 孝 meaning ’filial piety’ which enjoins a deep reverence for one’s parents and ancestors. One of the Confucian classics is called the Xiao-Jing  孝經  which enjoins a three year period of mourning and ancestor veneration rituals like the spring Qingming festival 清明 节 (’Tomb Sweeping Day’).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Filial_Piety

These traditional values remain highly influential even within the Communist PRC, and the emphasis they lay on caring for your parents in their old age has led some Chinese communities to counter the social dislocation of modern urbanization by introducing support contracts for elderly parents.

In Confucian thought, children owe an "eternal debt" to their parents for the gift of life, and the years of protection and care they received, especially in the first three years of their life when they were wholly dependent on them (hence the three year period of mourning).

The ideogram for xiào (孝) depicts a child (zǐ, 子) below an elder (lǎo, 老), symbolizing a son supporting or carrying an older person.

7 hours ago, MigL said:

I can see such a need for places where young people need to move away from their elderly parents ( as has been mentioned about China, and Southern Italy which I'm familiar with ) in order to find employment, but why are their families abandoning their parents, or sending them into retirement homes in places like the US and Canada ?
Parents deserve better than an app; their families should care for them.

People in general no longer necessarily live in the same town as their parents. The children look for the best work opportunity and establish their families where they find it, while the parents often move when they retire, somewhere more rural, somewhere with good climate or whatever. It's not realistic to expect parents and adult children to live in the same household or only a few streets away.

21 hours ago, geordief said:

Faux GPTChat?

Took me a beat to catch the French/English pun. Har!

19 hours ago, CharonY said:

You know, it struck me that the development of all these things just shows how tech is helping us to be even more disconnected from each other. I mean, one could have a system which where actual humans are checking on the elderly.

Yes. The inverted population pyramid, when it comes, will make this harder if there are labor shortages in direct care occupations. IIRC, South Korea with its very low fertility rate (and low immigration) will hit this wall first.