The morbid lifeline that went viral: what the “are you dead?” app tells us about society
The premise of the “are you dead?” app is almost offensively plain: once a day, you tap a single button to signal you’re alive.
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Ainura Kalau is a writer at Silicon Canals based in São Paulo. Born in Central Asia, she lived more than a decade in Malaysia before settling in Brazil — a path that gives her natural fluency in how innovation ecosystems differ across continents and how people, capital, and policy translate between them. She writes about cross-border technology, emerging-market dynamics, and the lived experience of building from outside the dominant hubs.
The premise of the “are you dead?” app is almost offensively plain: once a day, you tap a single button to signal you’re alive.
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