Nusseir Yassin of Nas Daily is “exploitative” and fuels a “neocoloniast narrative”, said the founder of The Cacao Project Louise Mabulo in a Facebook post on Thursday (5 Aug).
As the content creator came under fire in recent days about his alleged exploitation of revered Filipino tattooist Apo Whang-od Ogga, another Filipino has come forth to share her experience with Mr Nussier.
Recounting her own experience with the creator of Nas Daily from when he visited her hometown back in 2019 to cover her story on The Cacao Project, Ms Mabulo said that she was a “huge fan” of him back then.
The Cacao Project is an initiative that provides farmers in the Philippines with cacao plant seeds, and teaches them how to sustainably and responsibly produce cacao. It has helped over 200 farmers and has aided in reforestation efforts.
“At the time, I was gaining some press exposure and building up on opportunities thanks to UNEP’s recognition of the work I do in my hometown for my farmers. It was enough that a friend, Shai Lagarde, had referred Nas Daily to us,” said Ms Mabulo, who made it to the ‘Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020‘ list.
She went on to recount how her family took in Mr Nusseir and his fellow content creators as guests, but things turned sour fast.
Ms Mabulo described watching him “imitate and mock” the local language and accent, and insulting Tagalog-sounding syllabic phrases as “stupid”. He also repeatedly remarked that the people in her hometown were “poor”, she claimed.
According to her, the man behind Nas Daily was appeared to only be interested in whether the content would attract viewers.
“He said no one wants to hear about farmers or farms, it’s not clickable viewable content,” Ms Mabulo recalled.
She continued, “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.”
Ms Mabulo lamented, “I’ve worked with journalists, documentary-makers, professors, who have seen my work, interviewed me, and even featured us, and have had no negative experiences that could ever brush up to what I saw that day.
“Blatant discrimination of my people, no regard for local customs or cultures, and he’d built a story in his mind without meaningfully understanding the context of what he was going to cover.”
As a result, Ms Mabulo noted that he was disappointed that she wasn’t the “perfectly packaged story” that he had imagined.
Shockingly, she also described how the content creator had even “refused” to let anyone take a break or eat, and that he blamed his lack of click-worthy content on her, claiming that everything was not viewable or clickable.
Ms Mabulo reiterated that she was “fully transparent” in her phone conversation with him that she didn’t think her work could be visualised and that there were too many factors to cover in under one minute.
They eventually agreed that he should leave, she said.
“I should have known better, that this man was exploitative and fuelling a neocolonialist narrative using our need for foreign validation.”
Ms Mabulo went on to say that she feared backlash from the whole encounter, which is why she kept silent all this while, not wanting to risk her hometown or the farmers who have benefitted from The Cacao Project over a falling-out with an influencer.
“After all, it’s easy to take Nusseir’s word over mine,” she said, adding that she has been “haunted” by the knowledge that he could manipulate years of her work with a “single carelessly misinformed video”.
In her post, Ms Mabulo urged fellow Filipinos to stand together on this issue.
“We are not content to be exploited. We are not culture to be capitalised. We are not people to be romanticized. Or poverty to set the scene for ‘Benevolent Saviors’. We are more than what the world thinks of us,” she asserted.
Describing Nas Daily as a “new wave of colonialism”, Ms Mabulo expressed that she has been “mistrustful” of anyone who wants to feature her work after this experience.
“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,” she remarked.
The Apo Whang-od controversy
On Wednesday (4 Aug), Gracia Palicas revealed in a now-removed post on Facebook that her grandmother, commonly known as Whang-od, had never agreed to teach an online class that was being offered by Nas Academy, an offshoot of the Nas Daily brand. She called it a “scam”, and urged people not to support it.
Ms Palicas, a tattooist, said that her 104-year-old grandmother did not sign any contract with the brand, and pleaded with readers to help them stop the “disrespect” to the legacy of Whang-od.
The course has since been removed from Nas Academy, however, a statement from Nas Daily claimed that it was not a scam and that Whang-od fully understood and consented to the contract. The statement was accompanied by a video showing the revered tattooist affixing her thumbprint to a contract.
In her post, Ms Mabulo also praised Ms Gracia for having the courage to speak up about the exploitation of her grandmother and culture, and assured her that she was not alone in her experience.
“I stand with you, and hope you can get justice and the compensation your tribe deserves from exploitative content creators,” said Ms Mabulo, as she lauded Ms Gracia for calling out the “injustice” of the behaviour Nas Daily has normalised.
Commenting further on the incident with Whang-Od, Ms Mabulo described Mr Nussier’s refusal to take down the course until Ms Gracia had removed her post was a “clear sign of systematic silencing” in hopes that they can continue making money from the Filipino culture.
“And now, his response to the issue illustrates a video of Apo Whang-Od signing a dubious contract— the same strategy colonizers used to mislead indigenous people to sell off their land, happening now action in the 21st century, except instead of land, it’s data and content and tradition being sold,” she added.
Nas Daily follower count drops by more than 340,000 amid controversy
Meanwhile, it was reported earlier today (6 Aug) that Nas Daily’s Facebook page has been experiencing a massive drop in followers amid the whole controversy.
True enough, at the time of writing, data from Facebook analytics tool CrowdTangle revealed about 340,000 users have unfollowed the page within the last few days.
