YouTube star El Rubius sets sights on anime success with Virtual Hero
Do you know who El Rubius is? Rubén Doblas is one of the most popular gamers on YouTube, with more than 28.6m subscribers to his channel. I’ve caught my eight year-old watching him play the game Fortnite – in fact, he recently broke a YouTube record with one of his live streams in that game.
I’m always fascinated by what YouTubers do with their online fame, in terms of new projects that stretch beyond the videos that first attracted their fanbase. In El Rubius’ case, his next thing is an TV show called Virtual Hero, firmly rooted in the anime style of animation. He spoke at the MIPTV conference in Cannes yesterday, where I’m working as a freelancer (I was livetweeting his session for the show’s official feed) and had some interesting things to say.
“If you know Ready Player One, it’s like a parody and combination of that and Guardians of the Galaxy. The friendship part of that movie, and the crazy part of virtual reality headsets,” said El Rubius, about the show, which is a partnership with Spanish TV subscription service Movistar+.
“This is one of my most-dreamed projects all my life. I’ve always loved Japanese anime, and I’ve also studied animation before I started on YouTube. So it’s been a big project that I have thought about for my entire life! It was important to get all the parts together: to find the right animation studio and the right people in Spain. I think it’s coming out pretty good!”
El Rubius said that while the show features plenty of “Spanish humour” it’s also being made with an eye towards a global audience. Like other YouTubers, he has passed on TV projects before, when they haven’t suited his way of working, and his relationship with his fans.
“I like watching movies and TV shows, but I never see me doing something like that. I tried some small things before, but it’s difficult to bring my character, who is me, to the screen. People tried to censor me, I can’t be myself! And that’s really important for me,” he said. In this case, his partners “give me the freedom to help write the script, and give my input on that. And make the character from the series look as much like me [as possible].”
It seems a simple thing, but being yourself really is the key to popularity on YouTube, both with children and adults alike. That’s why quite a few YouTubers, I think, have come unstuck when doing advertising-led videos that don’t feel ‘right’, or by going down a road in their content that fans don’t want to follow.
“I don’t know! I just try to be myself and it seems to be working for me!” said El Rubius, while cheerfully deflecting a question about how much he earns with the (jokey) response “About 12 bitcoins!” However, he was entirely serious in his response to a question about how long he’ll carry on making videos for YouTube, even if the TV show does well.
“Until I get tired I guess! This is the thing I love doing the most: YouTube videos. I’m probably going to stay here for a little bit longer! I don’t think I’ll be playing video games on YouTube when I’m 60 years old. But who knows: maybe,” he said, smiling.
That is an existential question for many YouTubers, particularly those involved in gaming and/or with young fanbases. I once interviewed Joseph ‘Stampy’ Garrett and asked him about his future, and he thought hard about his response. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, especially the way a lot of my success is tied directly to Minecraft. There’s the possibility if Minecraft’s popularity dwindles, and my audience moves on from that, do I try and move with them?” said Stampy then.
I suspect El Rubius is similarly thoughtful about where he wants to take his career. Virtual Hero will debut in Spain this summer on Movistar+ but the company is looking for a global distributor, so it could be popping up on other channels around the world in 2018.
