ElRubius, one of the streamers and youtubers who gathers more millions of followers around the world, has made one of his few television appearances on Wednesday night. It has been under the mask of Tigre, one of the characters that has competed in the third season of the successful Antena 3 contest Mask Singer: Guess who sings. His elimination has come in the second round of the contest. "I'm here basically because my mother was excited," he said after being discovered.
After the appearance of international stars such as the American actress Tori Spelling (Sensation of living) just a few weeks ago or the British singer Mel B (one of the members of the Spice Girls), the program produced by Fremantle has specialized in attracting to its game characters whose fame comes from areas far from television and who, To a large extent, they are allergic to it. Not only do they dare to sing in public, but they do it hidden under the most bizarre disguises, in a space that is an original idea of South Korean television.
For Carmen Ferreiro, entertainment director of Atresmedia, the presence of characters like ElRubius is one of the great feats of Mask Singer. "The influencers and stars of the virtual world are an added value to attract young audiences to the program. Because, as in the rest of the chain's spaces, one of the main keys to its casting lies in uniting profiles that interest all generations," he says by phone.
Rubén Doblas, known as ElRubius, surpasses any Spanish television in convening power. He has 40 million subscribers on YouTube and is the third most followed Twitch user worldwide with 14 million. In Mask Singer, which is one of the few television appearances of his life, he debuted singing the version of the rock classic Beggin made a few years ago by the Italian band Måneskin. In his second and last participation he has dared with Todo de ti, the great success of Rauw Alejandro. The streamer had already appeared on Antena 3 in 2015, in Al rincón de pensar, Risto Mejide's talk show, similar to Mediaset's Chester. And in 2020 he presented in Neox —also of Atresmedia— his own program, Top Gamers Academy, a kind of Operation Triumph of video games.
Since its inception, those responsible for the casting of the contest have tried to maintain the ability to surprise the audience with unexpected signings, such as the queen of the pink press Isabel Preysler, the politician Esperanza Aguirre and the Instagram star María Pombo last season or a radio icon like José Ramón de la Morena in the current one. Already in their first program, in 2020, they did it involving Georgina Rodríguez, whose voice was barely known until then (neither spoken nor sung). Since that time, he has also become a TV star, with his own reality show on Netflix.
Mask Singer arrived in Spain in the middle of the pandemic. It was a balm of pop surrealism imported from South Korea that helped the viewer escape the tragedy. With its third season, currently broadcasting, it has established itself as one of the most successful programs on Spanish television, with screen shares around 18%, similar to those of giants such as Tu cara me suena or Supervivientes.
Esperanza Aguirre, in 'Mask Singer'.
Mario Briongos, content director of Fremantle Spain, the producer in charge of the contest, assures, even at the risk of falling into the cliché, that this is the season that will surprise the most, with names that will generate a lot of conversation. So far, only three episodes have been broadcast and six of the 16 participants of this batch have been discovered. "There is a lot of artillery left in the coming weeks," he also said by telephone. International celebrities are offered very luxurious hotels to compensate for the fact that, in their case, they cannot walk around Madrid freely while recording the program. In this way, they ensure a place so comfortable that they do not feel like leaving it, surrounded by a staff that is accustomed to preserving the discretion of its customers.
"In addition to the economic motivation, with a cache to match, and the idea of participating in a space of international success, another aspect that convinces this type of profiles outside Spanish television is to feel protected under a mask. It's something they would never do bare-faced," says the producer. In a way, Mask Singer, one of the many formats in Spain made with celebrities, reverses the famous status of its participants. "And it puts celebrities on the same level, [and unlike other celebrity reality shows], no one is more than anyone else in this competition."
The cast of the fourth season of Mask Singer is currently being prepared. "We are going for the impossible. We aim very high," Ferreiro says. Both the board of Atresmedia and Fremantle prefer not to name any celebrity who has refused to attend the program. "I don't say any names because I never lose hope. Some have told us no a first time and then we convinced them," says Ferreiro. "Two of the participants in this third season had been telling us no for years and here they are now," says Briongos.
The slopes of ElRubius
One of the clues to help the show's investigators and audience discover ElRubius' identity was: "I'm pure fire and as I light up I start to start and tell you how my appearance on Jimmy Kimmel was." Both he and another YouTuber, Mangel, appeared briefly in 2017 in a photo on American late night during an interview with actress Jennifer Lawrence, who had previously visited the Spaniard's YouTube channel to promote one of his films. Antonio Banderas, Enrique Iglesias, Saúl Craviotto, Luis Fonsi, Ricky Rubio and Carlos Bardem have been some names that have been wrongly suggested by space detectives: the Javis, Ana Obregón and Mónica Naranjo. They have not been able to decipher who was behind the Tiger costume.
Rubius and Mangel dated in a Jimmy Kimmel interview with Jennifer Lawrence 6 years ago PagMan pic.twitter.com/VHq6C3Nuk2
— rubius clips (@rubiusclips_) April 1, 2023
Another of the clues assured that "the secret is in the fruit", in reference to the record that Doblas achieved in networks in 2016, by exceeding one million "likes" in 48 hours with a message as simple as an eight-letter word (lemonade) and an emoticon, demonstrating its enormous power among the virtual community. The trick was to raffle among those who shared the message a dozen video game consoles, among other things. In another clue he claimed to be 7,000 million years old, when in fact he was referring to the number of views that his videos have generated.
LEMONADE 🗿
— elrubius (@Rubiu5) August 20, 2016
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