Culture

Students Quarantined In China Are Trying To Get Out Of School By Spamming Their Homework App

Those tiny geniuses.

by Rachael Conaghan  10 March 2020
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Once upon a time, a city-wide lockdown would have one thing going for it — when schools shut down, they really shut down.

Not so much in the digital age. In China, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, teachers have still been able to hold classes and set homework remotely using an app called DingTalk.

But after a rumour started circulating that apps with enough one-star reviews would be removed from the app store, students have been flooding DingTalk with so many shit reviews the developer has literally begged for mercy.

“Thank you for letting me reunite with my teachers. Iโ€™ll give you 5 stars separated in 5 reviews,” one sassy reviewer said.

On the first day back at school more than 50 million students and 600,000 teachers reportedly used the app’s live-streaming feature to hold classes.

Since then tens of thousands of one-start reviews have flooded in from students trying to get the app deleted, with the rating plummeting from 4.9 to 1.4 overnight.

On social media the app has begged for it to stop, saying, “Iโ€™m only five years old myself, please donโ€™t killย me.”

DingTalk have also released a chaotic and meme-y music video with lyrics like, “I know guys, you were not expecting such a productive holiday,” and “Please don’t give me any more one-star ratings. I was chosen for this job and there is not much I can do about it.”

dingtalk dingtalk

Although the app is still available on the app store (nice try kids) people are loving their enterprising spirit.

Even the app’s CEO Chen Hang gets it.

“Itโ€™s in kidsโ€™ nature to love to play. If I were in their shoes and had to take online lessons every day, I would probably give a one-star review too,” he said.