record-high youth unemployment figures<\/a> \u2013 and you can see why an app with such a grim name might have resonated with users across the country.<\/p>\n\u201cAlone but not lonely, safety by your side,\u201d the app\u2019s description says in the App Store, adding that it aims to reach \u201ca solo office worker, a student living away from home, or anyone choosing a solitary lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n
After days of global attention, the app appears to have been removed from both Android and Apple app stores in mainland China, Global Times reported on Thursday. CNN staff in mainland China could not find the app anymore; though it is still viewable in app stores elsewhere, including in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Disappearing is \u2018the scariest thing\u2019<\/p>\n
Many social media users welcomed the app, saying they felt seen or comforted.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first time, someone is concerned about whether I\u2019m dead or alive,\u201d one wrote on the blogging platform Weibo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis 8-yuan app is somehow the last bit of dignity for so many young people living alone. The scariest thing isn\u2019t loneliness \u2013 it\u2019s disappearing,\u201d another user wrote, referring to the cost of the app ($1.15).<\/p>\n
This response shows how the app \u201ctaps into this feeling of atomization, being stuck on your own, being isolated in terms of very long working hours,\u201d said Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor of social science and public policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of young people \u2026 have not been able to have the social life that they would want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, he added, Chinese society should use the hype around this app as a starting point to find ways to better support both lonely elderly and young people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf an app or a piece of technology like this can prevent one person from dying alone, or from taking their own life, and to have just one small piece of connection, of course that is a positive,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what you would never want is for this to \u2026 substitute more meaningful social interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some also urged the app to rebrand to something more encouraging or neutral.<\/p>\n
Hu Xijin, a pundit and former editor of Global Times, praised the app for helping lonely elderly residents \u2013 but suggested renaming it to \u201cAre You Alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The app seems to have listened \u2013 announcing on Tuesday that it would adopt the name \u201cDemumu\u201d on its global app, after attracting massive attention from overseas users. It said it would also raise the price of the app to 8 yuan, up from 1 yuan (about 14 cents).<\/p>\n
The new name still contains a subtle nod to its predecessor, though. The \u201cde\u201d in \u201cDemumu\u201d derives from the English word \u201cdeath,\u201d while \u201cmumu\u201d was tacked on for a friendlier feel, the developers told one state-affiliated news outlet.<\/p>\n
In a previous post on Weibo, the developers had thanked its users and the media for the coverage, saying they were a team of three co-founders born after 1995.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel honored and deeply grateful to receive such widespread attention,\u201d the team said in the statement, according to Global Times.<\/p>\n
CNN\u2019s Rae Wang contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In recent weeks, a morbid-sounding app has taken China by storm, tapping into widespread loneliness and youth disaffection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[114,124301,61,60,202,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-247302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-global-times","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-mobile","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}