Singapore — At the Tech in Asia conference, Nuseir Yassin, the founder of the popular Nas Daily vlog, said that “Nas Daily got too big too fast” in the Philippines, adding that this was actually a good thing.
However, because of its swift rise, it was inevitable that there would be “resistance.”
Two controversies surrounded Mr Nuseir Yassin and his online learning platform, Nas Academy, in the Philippines last August, after a course on tribal tattooing methods was called a scam.
On the same day, after news broke, Filipino social entrepreneur Ms Louise de Guzman Mabulo wrote in a Facebook post that went viral quickly that the vlogger had mocked Filipinos for being poor.
The fallout from the controversies was severe, with Mr Nuseir Yassin receiving sharp criticism and losing hundreds of thousands of online followers in one day.
However, in an Oct 13 article on techinasia.com, the eternally upbeat vlogger framed what happened in positive terms.
“With the Philippines, Nas Daily got too big too fast, and there’s always resistance for whatever grows big enough – and that should be a compliment,” he said in this year’s Tech in Asia conference, held from Oct 12 to 14.
Mr Nuseir Yassin also said that content creators need to get used to pushback.
“And the minute you’re comfortable with resistance, then you can start creating content that you truly and meaningfully believe in,” he added.
Furthermore, Mr Nuseir Yassin embraces the struggle of creating content that challenges the way people think.
“You cannot get big enough without resistance. If you don’t have resistance, you’re not doing anything, you’re just a comedian.”
In August, Mr Yassin pushed back against critics after Ms Mabulo’s post went viral and warned the public to be careful of “fake posts.”
In a video, while keeping his characteristic upbeat tone, he conveyed that he was not taking “fake posts” sitting down, saying “I am angry, and you are angry,” and asking people that when they make an opinion, they do not base it on “fake news.”
He went on to again call the award-winning Cacao Project of social entrepreneur Ms Mabulo “a fake story.”
In response, Ms Mabulo announced that she was filing a report about Mr Yassin’s alleged insults against Filipino farmers and have him declared “persona non grata” by the Commission on Human Rights.
At that time, many Singaporean netizens who commented on the story remained unconvinced, with some wrote that he should have just apologised. /TISG
Read also: Filipino social entrepreneur pushing to ban Nas Daily from the Philippines
Filipino social entrepreneur pushing to ban Nas Daily from the Philippines