A ‘No-Rules’ Experiment Born from Imitation
Created by brothers Carlos and Daniel Ramos on YouTube, the web reality show ‘La casa de los gemelos’ (The House of the Twins) is a low-budget, no-rules imitation of ‘Gran Hermano’ (Big Brother), the classic show from Spanish channel Telecinco. The program invited several TikTok influencers to live in a villa in Madrid for a 24/7 live stream. Its first season premiered on October 12, 2025, but was abruptly shut down just 9 hours after airing due to out-of-control scenes filled with fights, indecent acts, and suspected drug use. However, this only fueled its viral spread.
A Viral Frenzy and a Viewership Miracle
Despite its short-lived first season, the show’s ‘authenticity’ and ‘chaos’ attracted a massive young audience. When the second season returned, peak concurrent viewership neared 2 million people. On December 7, 2025, its number of simultaneous viewers even surpassed that of ‘Gran Hermano,’ the pioneering Spanish reality show, forcing the latter to end its season early due to record-low ratings. Although clips of physical altercations, racist, and sexist remarks sparked huge controversy, they were edited into ‘viral moments’ and widely shared on social media, becoming the core source of its traffic.
Business Model and Regulatory Challenges
Behind the show’s high traffic is the online gambling promotion business of its creators, the Ramos brothers. They use the show to attract viewers and then direct them to affiliated gambling platforms. One of these platforms was fined 5 million euros in February 2024 for operating without a license. Currently, the Spanish Association of Communication Users (Asociación de Usuarios de la Comunicación) has formally requested the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) to intervene and investigate whether the show violates Spain’s General Audiovisual Communication Law (Law 13/2022) regarding the protection of human dignity and the prohibition of incitement to hatred. This phenomenon reflects the significant impact of loosely regulated online content on the traditional media landscape.
