Elon Musk’s goal of creating a “everything app” for Twitter, now known as X, is well known. When the X logo took the place of Twitter’s blue bird, the internet was ablaze with passionate debates over what it meant for X to be an all-encompassing app.
Musk used the Chinese all-in-one program WeChat to promote his super app idea. But a series of queries followed for many American users who were not familiar with WeChat. What is WeChat like to use? Why is WeChat “everything” in China now? Could the app’s success in the United States be duplicated?
Chinese digital media academic here; I’ve been using WeChat since 2012. Contrary to Musk’s enthusiasm, I don’t think WeChat is really noteworthy. It lacks distinguishing qualities compared to the other well-known apps I researched for my current book project regarding Chinese touchscreen media, therefore I think it’s conventional rather than unique.
There is a reason why WeChat isn’t prominently shown on my phone screen. WeChat is an all-encompassing software in the sense that it serves as a digital hub for over a billion users, but its design is purposefully based on a more complex and philosophical interpretation of the term “everything” than you might anticipate.
A comprehensive media ecosystem, WeChat
WeChat, which was first released in 2011, has evolved into an all-in-one application that provides services for the majority of elements of daily life, including social networking, mobile payments, and instant messaging. For the 1.3 billion Chinese mobile users, it has integrated into daily routines.
Travelers heading to China can download WeChat if they only wish to install one app. You can use WeChat to place restaurant orders, summon a taxi, pay for a hotel stay, and fill out customs declaration paperwork. A visitor to China without WeChat would feel out of place because everything in the country now relies on mobile devices and platforms for mobile payments.
In this regard, WeChat truly is an all-encompassing app. Its “everythingness” refers to its almost omnipresent and omnipotent nature in daily life. Users’ daily activities are influenced by the app’s creation of an all-encompassing and constantly growing media ecosystem. As per the insights of the renowned German philosopher and media theorist Peter Sloterdijk, it constitutes an enormous digital nucleus, pulling into its orbit all that once existed beyond its boundaries. “
Every tap or swipe on a smartphone user makes a giant tech corporation money, and this “everythingness” makes it difficult for alternative businesses to acquire equivalent dominance. Perhaps this ambition of building an internet empire is what makes it so alluring for tech titans like Musk.
An illogical design philosophy
WeChat is a universal app, but it’s also one of my phone’s least interesting and visually appealing apps. WeChat seldom ever updates its logo to mark holidays or inform users about administrative updates. Due to the fact that WeChat users may only access content posted by their connections, as opposed to Weibo or TikTok, where celebrities can collect millions of followers, the app creates a somewhat limited social arena.
WeChat’s creator and main developer Allen Xiaolong Zhang made it clear in his yearly public addresses in 2019 and 2020 that the lack of eye-catching, attention-grabbing features is actually one of the app’s purposeful design philosophy. One of WeChat’s design tenets, according to Zhang, is to “get users out of the app as fast as possible,” which refers to minimizing the time users spend in the app.
It might seem counterintuitive, but how can WeChat keep up its online hegemony if it wants users to abandon the app as quickly as possible? The amount of time users spend in an app is typically used to gauge its popularity, and users’ attention is a valuable resource that different digital platforms compete for.
Zhang contends that it’s crucial to give users as quick a way out of the app as possible in order to maintain their daily involvement with it over time. To keep users coming back to the app without wearing them out, there should be little demand for their time and effort.
Behind WeChat’s design is a Taoist message
Zhang’s concept is made evident by the way WeChat miniprograms are made. Miniprograms, which are embedded inside WeChat as third-party sub-applications, give users quick access to a variety of services without having to leave the app, including ordering meals, hailing a cab, purchasing train tickets, and playing games. Users can avoid the time-consuming processes of installing and uninstalling new programs by performing a simple search within the app or scanning a QR code to start a mini-program.
A top-of-the-screen hidden panel is where miniprograms are kept. Swiping down the screen will open them. These mini-programs have the impression of being fleeting, diffuse, and even ambient. They give users the impression that WeChat has vanished or assimilated with the surroundings.
WeChat is what media theorists refer to as “elemental“: discrete and unobtrusive, yet widespread and as fundamental as the elements of nature, such as air, water, and clouds.
The ancient Chinese Taoist philosophy, which understands nothing (wu 无, or “not-being”) as the source of all things (wanwu 万物, or “ten thousand things”), is in tune with this milieu of pervasiveness and unobtrusiveness. According to the Tao Te Ching, “Dao begets One (or nothingness), One begets Two (yin and yang), Two begets Three (Heaven, Earth and Man; or yin, yang and breath qi), Three begets all things.” According to Taoist philosophers, the not-being governs how all things in the cosmos arise, change, and vanish.
The ancient Taoist ideas let individuals understand the interplay of everything and nothing, despite the incomprehensible complexity of these wise literature. This viewpoint expands the notion of “everything” and offers new perspectives on what an everything app might be.
The secret to WeChat’s success over the past ten years may lie in how it interprets the word “everything”—as both omnipresent and undetectable. When imagining the everything app, I think many tech leaders could benefit from a more nuanced notion of “everything” that goes beyond just being vast and thorough.
Software (Windows)
