BUZZ BEAT MEDIA

Palestinian-Israeli vlogger Nusseir Yassin, also known as Nas Daily to his multitude of followers on social media, has recently been the talk of Filipinos on the Internet, with heated discussions centering on some of his content that are about the country. This lead people to wonder how the whole issue began, as the whole debacle has since snowballed into something more, and ultimately created more discourse on the topic of “Pinoy-baiting”. This term refers to a popular marketing strategy where content creators intentionally try to attract Filipino followers for views, under the assumption that people would watch them to rally their ‘Pinoy pride’ or even seek approval from foreigners.

Since the issue has since escalated, many are wondering what started it all. Others have begun calling out Nas Daily while others stood by his side. If you want to catch up on the whole fiasco, here is a rundown on what happened regarding the issue so far:

Whang Od’s grandniece calls out Nas Daily

Things began to take a turn when a Facebook post of the grandniece of Whang Od, who is a indigenous tattoo artist from Tabuk, Kalinga in Northern Luzon, made rounds online, after Nas Daily’s team had announced an online course. Apparently, the course would supposedly be lead by the legendary tattoo artist, who is known for keeping the Kalinga tradition alive of permanent hand-tapped tattooing.

Photo from Nasacademy.com

The grandniece of Whang Od vehemently denied Whang Od’s involvement of the course, calling out Nas Daily and stating that there was no contract at all, that Whang Od did not understand the translators at the time, and emphasizes, “I know you have good intentions of sharing our culture to the next generation. However, our village concern is that some people are profiting and exploiting our art and culture.”

Shortly after, Nas Daily Academy has removed the post from their site.

The Cacao Project

Since then, other influencers have spoken about the Palestinian-Israeli vlogger. Among them was “The Cacao Project” founder Louise de Guzman Mabulo, who stated that in her experience Nas was disrespectful when he came to the Philippines and that he was only into clickbait content, and he had refused to continue her story The Cacao Project, which she is the founder of.

She said in her post: “My family took him and other content creators in as welcome guests— with typical hospitality we are known for. However in so little time, I was disappointed to learn that the man I’d looked up to for years was not the bearer of good news he’d misled his followers to believe he was. I watched him imitate and mock the local accent and language, vocalising Tagalog-sounding syllabic phrases saying it sounded stupid. He repeatedly said that the people of my hometown “poor” “farmers are so poor!” “why are Filipinos so poor?” He said no one wants to hear about farmers or farms, it’s not clickable viewable content. He didn’t care about making change or shedding light on real issues— he only wanted content, a good, easy story to tell that would get him more Filipino views. He even joked at the start of the day that all he needed was to put “Philippines” in the title, and he’d rack in millions of views would  and the comments would come flooding with brainless ‘Pinoy pride’ comments.”

By the end of her post, she stated: “People like Nas Daily are the new wave of colonialism in today’s world, and I’ve been silent since 2019, but I cannot for the life of me sit silently any longer over this. I’ve threaded this into my message for years— support local, support local farmers, take action to aid marginalised groups, protect the vulnerable and empower them to stand for themselves too. We can only ever set the ground and pave the way for others. This has always been my belief, and ever since this experience, I have been mistrustful of anyone who would want to cover or feature what I have done. I have looked at everyone with more suspicion, and I resolved myself to hold no tolerance for affronts of this nature because I refuse to expose the people I care about to discrimination or exploitation in this way, and I have absolutely no filter for anyone who tries to anymore. Gracia had the steel to do what I couldn’t back then— to call out the injustice brought about by exploitative behaviour Nas Daily had normalised, and her people did not deserve.”

It didn’t take long for Nas Daily to fire back at Louise, however, refuting the things she has stated, and told the story of how when he went to the Philippines just to know her story, they were disappointed with what they actually saw, and emphasized that the success of The Cacao Project spread on the news are false. “To my biggest sadness and surprise, your story was not true on the ground. Once we arrived at your plantation, once we saw the village and talked to the farmers, we came to the conclusion that there is no story here. That the awards on the Internet are just that…awards. Our investigation has made it clear that your story in the media is false. And that there are no “200 farmers” that you work with, and there are no Cacao plantations that you don’t personally profit from.”

Louise gave him a response after. 

Others have also joined in on the discourse, with Mabulo’s father calling Nas “arrogant” while her classmate Keb Cuevas backed Nas Daily, stating that The Cacao Project is not the “social enterprise” that she says it is. Another notable vlogger was Lost Juan, who confirmed Nas Daily’s statements regarding what happened at Mabulo’s hometown. However, he also stated that he is only confirming Nas’ account regarding Louise and that he has become disappointed with the vlogger’s attitude.

And in August 9, Nas also shared his thoughts on the whole issue.

The whole issue has caused Nas Daily to lose more than 500,000 followers as of writing.

*Cover Photo/Thumbnail Photo from Facebook (Nas Daily)