Network Ten’s hit new show The Masked Singer has already amassed a huge audience – but some fans aren’t convinced the performances are genuine. Viewers were quick to slam the singers on social media, suggesting they weren’t actually performing their songs live. It's based on a South Korean show. The viral competition series isn't an American original — it's. It is correct that most celebrity-based reality TV competitions do not end with a large prize-bucket of winnings, as the contestants are typically paid a negotiated sum for their appearance. Recently Masked Singer host Nick Cannon opened up about the show, and revealed that he does not know who is under the costumes, but added that he does know how fans can better guess the celebrity identities.

Fox's new competition show, The Masked Singer, is exactly what it sounds like. Each week, a bunch of celebrities put on their chosen costumes and perform a song, leaving the audience (and the show's panel of judges) to guess who they are. And considering we can't always see their mouths, it's just as big a mystery if The Masked singer contestants sing live.

While most singing competitions are dependent on the performer's ability to deliver a good vocal performance in front of an audience, many of the Masked Singer stars aren't professionals. According to the show's official site, contestants range from 'Grammy Award winners to legendary athletes and everything in between.'

Obviously, we know it is the real person singing, otherwise that would defeat the purpose of guessing whose voice it is, but it's possible it's pre-recorded. After all, lip-syncing is a lot easier when your entire face is being obscured by a giant monster outfit. According to Inquisitr, series host Nick Cannon said during a January episode of The Talk that he couldn't believe producers were able to convince celebs to 'sing live in those ridiculous costumes,' which seems like confirmation that they are. However, it's easier to make a case for some singers than others.

In the premiere, some of the masked performers' costumes didn't cover their mouths. As such, it seemed pretty clear that the deer and the unicorn were both singing live, or at the very least doing a very convincing job of lip-syncing. The peacock and the lion's mouths were both fully obscured by their masks, but the masks themselves seemed to have a mesh material in front of the singer's faces that allowed their voices to carry through — which is helped by the fact that they're both clearly professional singers.

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Of all of night one's performers, the monster and the hippo seem most likely to have been lip-syncing. The hippo (who was later revealed to be NFL player Antonio Brown) had a costume that jutted out near his mouth area and left a gap underneath, which would've made it easier for him to project his real singing voice live. The monster, on the other hand, was holding a retro microphone that was different from the wireless mics the rest of the contestants were using. The monster also seemed to have the most obtrusive mask, though it was bulky enough that the performer, who sounds like they have a professionally-trained voice, could have been singing into a hands-free mic hidden under the fuzzy cyclops head.

Overall, it seems like a strong possibility that the Masked Singer stars are, in fact, singing live, though ultimately it doesn't really matter. The point is that they're using their real voices — for better or for worse — and we're all left guessing who the heck they are. Besides, who cares if they're singing live when there's a giant hippo hopping around to 'My Perogative'? Either way, this is entertainment gold — even if it is the most ridiculous thing on TV right now.

Fox's The Masked Singer started out as a strange, goofy, somewhat bizarre competition between celebrities. It's definitely still all those things, but now it's also a bona fide phenomenon. With the season finale airing Feb. 27, one costumed contestant will finally take home the Masked Singer prize. But what exactly do they win?

Well, right now it seems like it might just be bragging rights. According to USA Today,there's 'no particular prize.' Metro News echoed that sentiment, writing that 'like most celebrity-based reality television, The Masked Singer doesn't boast a big prize at the end.' And per the International Business Times, the main components of the show's prize are just bragging rights and a trophy.

While those may seem like pretty lackluster winnings against a reality TV landscape that frequently hands out record deals and hundreds of thousands of dollars, it makes sense for The Masked Singer. Each person behind the masks is a celebrity of some kind who presumably has plenty of money and opportunities, so it wouldn't make sense to give them even more. Some other celebrity competitions ask competitors to each choose a charity to compete on behalf of, and donate any winnings to, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

The point of The Masked Singer is pretty obviously not for its contestants to duke it out for a bunch of cash. It's just about having fun — and perhaps there's no need for a prize at all.

The show is an Americanized version of a Korean series, Kind of Mask Singer, according to Vulture, and also has versions in other countries. It's an off-the-wall idea: celebrities obscure their identities behind elaborate, outrageous costumes while performing songs and occasionally dropping clues about who they are until someone guesses right, or they're eliminated. But somehow, it works, and even functions on some level as a deeper commentary about celebrity culture.

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Vulture's Kathryn VanArendonk even wrote in the same piece that 'The Masked Singer is absolutely imbecilic, except for the fact that it is also a pretty fascinating examination of celebrity culture, mass appeal, performance, image, and fame.'

The has certainly had its fair share of critics, too, but even so, people can't seem to stop watching. As Vox's Todd VanDerWerff wrote:

'The Masked Singer is so ridiculous and so terrible that it wraps right back around to being one of the most compelling things on television. It's a reality singing competition that's barely interested in the words 'reality,' 'singing,' or 'competition.' It's an excuse for Hollywood to let its freak flag fly, but by 'Hollywood,' we mean, 'Z-list celebrities you might not have heard of.' And yet it's undeniably compelling and compulsively watchable in the way that reality shows that blow up in the ratings often are.'

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What's more, according to Esquire, The Masked Singer has yielded between 7 and 9 million viewers every single week right up until the end, which is definitely enough to qualify it as a hit.

Do The Contestants On The Masked Singer Get Paid

Heading into the finale, there's still plenty of speculation about who's behind each remaining mask. Only time will tell who takes home this prize, but no matter what they win, this surprisingly successful show will be sticking around in our minds for some time to come.