ElRubius

Who Is ElRubius?

ElRubius -- Rubén Doblas Gundersen -- is the Spanish-Norwegian gaming and comedy YouTuber from Málaga who built 40 million YouTube subscribers and 14 million Twitch followers by being the first Spanish-language creator to turn gaming content into a mainstream entertainment category rather than a niche subcultural one: his Minecraft, GTA, and later variety gaming content from 2011 onward established the production standards, the creator-audience energy, and the content velocity that every subsequent Spanish-language gaming channel was measured against. His 2019 move to Andorra -- the Pyrenean microstate that serves as the fiscal residence of choice for Spanish creators, athletes, and entrepreneurs seeking lower tax rates than Spain's 47% top marginal income tax -- was one of the most publicly documented creator tax moves in European media and generated a Spanish political discussion about the creator economy's economic footprint that continues today.^[1]

His "Virtual Hero" animated web series -- produced for Amazon Prime Video Spain in 2019, based on a character version of himself as a gaming hero -- was one of the first examples of a Spanish-language creator translating their YouTube channel's identity into a scripted streaming production, demonstrating that his audience's investment in his persona extended beyond gaming content to narrative entertainment that used his brand as its creative foundation.

Early Life: Málaga, Spain & Norway

Rubén Doblas Gundersen was born on February 13, 1990, in Málaga -- a city of approximately 580,000 on Spain's Costa del Sol, historically an Andalusian port city and now one of Spain's most important tech startup hubs. His father is Norwegian, giving him the Spanish-Norwegian dual identity that his "Rubius" nickname embeds (a Latinized version of a Nordic root) and that has made him bilingually situated in a way that Spanish YouTubers without international parentage are not. He spent significant portions of his childhood in Norway before returning to Spain, and his early YouTube content drew explicitly from his experience of moving between two very different European cultures -- providing the observational outsider perspective on Spanish culture that animated his earliest comedy segments before gaming became his primary content identity.^[2]

His YouTube channel, launched in 2011, built through Minecraft content at the exact moment when Minecraft was becoming the most-watched game on YouTube globally -- his entry timing captured the Spanish-language Minecraft audience that English-language channels like PewDiePie were capturing in English, establishing the first-mover incumbency in Spanish gaming YouTube that his subscriber count reflects 13 years later.

The Andorra Move, "Virtual Hero" & Streaming Transition

His 2019 relocation to Andorra was not quietly executed: he documented the move publicly, explained his tax reasoning, and became the most visible face of the broader exodus of Spanish digital creators (along with fellow YouTubers and streamers including Ibai Llanos, TheGrefg, and AuronPlay) who moved their fiscal residency from Spain to Andorra during 2018-2021. The Spanish government's public response -- including statements from politicians about creators' obligations to Spain -- generated a national conversation about whether the creator economy's revenue should be subject to Spanish income tax rates designed for traditional employment, and ElRubius was its central figure.^[3]

His "Virtual Hero" Amazon Prime Video series represented the creator-to-streaming-franchise trajectory: a 2D animated show featuring a gaming-world version of his YouTube persona, produced with a budget and production quality that his YouTube revenue could underwrite and his audience's established investment in his character could justify to a streaming platform whose Spanish-language content budget was expanding.

Brand Deals & Spanish Gaming Creator Economics

ElRubius's estimated YouTube integration rate is $80,000--$170,000 per placement, reflecting 40 million YouTube subscribers plus 14 million Twitch followers -- a dual-platform reach that his gaming audience consumes across both platforms and that brand deals in gaming hardware, gaming peripherals, and entertainment specifically value because Twitch audiences and YouTube gaming audiences have distinct consumption behaviors (live vs. on-demand) that a dual-platform creator satisfies simultaneously. His Andorra residency has no effect on his brand deal market value but significantly affects his net earnings per deal, making his effective hourly commercial return among the highest of any European creator. For Spanish gaming creator and Twitch streamer rate benchmarks, see our influencer pricing guide and brand deal negotiation guide.

Related Creators

German Garmendia's observational comedy and ElRubius's gaming content were the two founding pillars of Spanish-language YouTube at commercial scale -- both reaching 40M+ subscribers, both defining what Spanish creators were capable of before the travel, children's, and music categories fragmented the market. Vegetta777's collaborative Minecraft series with Willyrex represents the Spanish gaming YouTube format that ran parallel to ElRubius's solo gaming identity: Vegetta-Willyrex's partnership model versus ElRubius's solo creator model are the two structural approaches that Spanish gaming YouTube demonstrated at scale, and both produced 30-40M subscriber outcomes from the same 2011-2014 window of Spanish Minecraft content.

For rates and benchmarks in this creator category, see our YouTube influencer pricing guide.

Sources

1. 1 El Pais -- ElRubius y el Exodo a Andorra: Cuando los Youtubers se Fueron de España (2019)
2. 2 ABC España -- Ruben Doblas Gundersen: El Youtuber Hispano-Noruego que Conquisto Internet (2016)
3. 3 Expansion -- Virtual Hero y el Modelo Creator-to-Streaming: ElRubius en Amazon Prime Video (2019)

Frequently Asked Questions

ElRubius — Official Social Media & Links

All accounts below are the verified official profiles for ElRubius. Follower counts are approximate and updated periodically.