The Palestinian-Israeli travel influencer’s Nas Daily social media feeds have a total of 60 million followers, he claims, his success having been earned through a challenge he set himself to create 1,000 minute-long video clips showcasing the places he’s been and people he’s met on a ferocious itinerary.
To add to his chores he holds summits around the world and has recently established a company, Nas.io – which has something to do with online community management, something to do with the integration of social media channels, something to do with NFTs (naturally!) – and operates under the motto: “Bringing people together”.
However, while in Bali last week, he did anything but.
There’s no doubting that Indonesia’s Island of the Gods is well-populated with folk of the lighter-skinned variety but the “white, white, white” approach Yassin took in his first clip from the island – “Everything here is affordable, to white tourists at least,” he says, at one point – has raised many a social-media hackle.
The response was swift and unrestrained.
“This is disgustingly ignorant,” Jakarta Post journalist Hans David commented on Twitter.
Instagram poster mateussmtr asked, “What’s so interesting about having white people in a certain region? The last time we had so many white people in Indonesia was during Dutch colonisation.”
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Another Insta responder chipped in with: “First I thought it was satire, then I expected a plot twist, and now I’m disappointed that you don’t mention any critical aspect of (white) tourism in Bali.
“Did you actually say, ‘Everything is affordable to white tourists at least’? Have you thought about why? Unfortunately Bali is the perfect example for inequality and how rich people live and enjoy their lives at the expense of others, in this case of local Balinese who have to work hard only to cover the essentials of daily life.”
Oddly, the fact Bali has no public transport to speak of is presented in the clip as a positive, the reality of thousands of road-clogging scooters zipping through the “green beautiful rice fields” as joyous. Several white folk are filmed riding theirs bareheaded.
“The media doesn’t cover the fact that there are hundreds of scooter accidents because of foreigners driving around without caution or a helmet […] or the ‘nature’ is actually damaged because of the impact of tourism,” railed sallyyaugusta, on Instagram.
There is much, much more of the same, as well as some commentators wondering whether all those smiling white faces in the video belong to people who are living in Bali legally.
He always seems to be in such a rush, you could perhaps excuse Yassin one misstep, but he’s offended Asians before.
Whang-od’s grandniece and protégé, Grace Palicas, claimed the traditional tattoo artist had not given proper consent.
Later, Louise Mabulo, the founder of a social enterprise aimed at helping farmers, revealed her own distasteful encounter with the social media personality.
“[Mabulo] took to Facebook to call out Nas Daily vlogger Nuseir Yassin over his 2019 visit to her hometown, claiming he had been rude, mocked the local accent and language, and cared only about clickable content,” reported Rappler in 2021.
The Philippine news site quoted Mabulo at length: “I watched him imitate and mock the local accent and language, vocalising Tagalog-sounding syllabic phrases saying it sounded stupid.
“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 and the comments would come flooding with brainless ‘Pinoy pride’ comments.”
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On Nas Daily’s Tagalog page, Yassin hit back, claiming Mabulo had been fibbing about the good deeds her enterprise did and that, “I will never ever put Fake News on Nas Daily.”
Which brings us neatly back to Bali, which “is an island, not a village”, reiterates a poster by the name of skrndg on Instagram.
“We don’t need more people promoting white people to live in the country and take over the market while the locals are struggling to make ends meet. Idk [that’s “I don’t know”, for you analogue hermits] why would you make this video without further research beforehand.”
And that’s probably the crux of it. In his quest to get a video clip out every day and be all things to all digi-peeps, maybe this vlogger has been rushing things.
Slow down, young man, and enjoy the journey.
Where exactly are AirAsia’s FREE* air tickets?
Well, we can’t find ’em.
“Dear media friends, AirAsia launched its first FREE* seats for the year with 5 million FREE* seats up for grabs, commencing today [February 10] till 19 February 2023,” we were told, by email.
That sounded exciting, even if the asterisk did explain that “airport tax, fuel surcharge and other applicable fees” would still be charged.
Where should we go, we wondered? The Malaysian airline flies from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Kota Kinabalu.
But no. We read some of the smaller print and discovered that the only flights being offered for FREE (whatever that styling signifies) in our part of the world are from Macau to KL. And then only for departure between March 1 and March 25.
And even those we couldn’t find on the booking site, having checked for every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (when the thrice-weekly flights leave) during the offer period in vain.
Every AirAsia ticket for that route we found was priced at US$110. (FYI, Scoot was US$3 cheaper).
We felt more than a little deflated…
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