Like most Pinoys, I first saw Nas (real name: Nuseir Yassin) in one of his many videos about the Philippines, which would always go viral on Facebook, where he has 13.8 million followers on his page, Nas Daily.
Videos like “What’s my favorite country?” would show our best side to the world (We speak English! We’re the friendliest! Food and drink are cheap here! We have incredible nature and beautiful islands!), and the videos were only one-minute long — the perfect length for anyone with a busy schedule or ADHD.
Nas Daily’s videos about the Philippines have gotten over 40 million views, according to Department of Tourism Assistant Secretary Howard Uyking, and though they can’t quantify that in terms of number of tourist arrivals, there’s no doubt that Nas Daily has had an overwhelmingly positive effect on the way the rest of the world perceives us, and the way we perceive ourselves. Nas loves us, and we love Nas.
So, two years after his first visit, Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat invited Nas back to the Philippines to cover the DOT’s sustainable tourism efforts across the archipelago, and Nas also partnered with SM Aura Premier to hold a meet-up with thousands of his fans at the eco-friendly mall’s Samsung Hall.
We’ll be seeing the fruits of Nas’ latest visit in videos real soon. In the meantime, the STAR had an exclusive interview with the 27-year-old Palestinian video maker (he clarifies he’s not a vlogger) from Israel — “I’m from Nazareth. They call me the Nas of Nazareth” — the self-described “brown,” “average,” “(from a small) village,” “Muslim” young man who’s conquered the world with his humanitarian content and closing line: “That’s one minute. See you tomorrow!”
THE PHILIPPINE STAR: How was your event last night?
NAS DAILY: Perfect. It was perfect.
What sort of video are you making from the meet-up?
So we came to the Philippines because I’m very interested in sustainability. And many countries are trying different things. Some countries are banning plastic entirely. Some countries are inventing new ways to get rid of incineration plants; some countries are trying to catch up. Some countries are trying to build the infrastructure right. So the Philippines is one of those countries that are trying to fight the plastic and the trash and I wondered how were they going to do it. So that’s why we went to El Nido, Boracay, Palawan, Puerto Galera, Manila Bay, with the help of the Department of Tourism, to see those efforts and to make a video about it. Because I think at some point it’ll be inspiring to other countries to do the same —any country that has problems with over-tourism, like Thailand, or Indonesia.
Out of all the places you visited here, which one blew you away the most?
I like El Nido because I feel like it’s not as discovered as Boracay, so I like the fact that it’s a little bit private, remote, different. And I like that even if there are still problems of over-tourism or sewage treatment and whatnot, the people are still trying to ban plastic and clean the beach and doing all that stuff, so it’s amazing.
Do you still have a lot of stories to tell about the Philippines?
Well, the stories never end here. You guys make sure to always make new stories. So yes, we’re still looking for more stories. But I think there’s going to be a separate trip. I’m going to come back and do something about it.
How did you come up with a brilliant idea of making one-minute videos?
I wanted to force myself to do something every single day. And I cannot make a 10-minute video every day. I cannot make one-second video every day — it’s too easy — so I thought a one-minute video is hard enough. And it’s a good enough time to communicate a message. So I started one minute every day.
And how long does it take you to make that one minute?
It only takes 14 hours! It’s not easy.
So now you’re down to one video a week…
So call me Nas Weekly. (chuckles)
And we make a video, it’s three minutes and above. Now we go in-depth. Sustainable tourism in the Philippines, we couldn’t do it in one minute, because you want to show more: “This is how they did it.”
Do you miss the pace of the daily video?
Yes, I do.
Do you think you’ll ever go back to it?
Yes.
What is your top video thus far?
It’s called “How This Guy Cleaned a Lake!” It’s about a guy in Peru who figured out a way to make his lake more sustainable, to clean his lake from being trash to something amazing. And this guy is like a PhD graduate from a Japanese university. And I showed the efforts of how he took a loan from a bank and put all this stuff just to clean his childhood lake. And then that video got 140 million views in three months! Blew my mind.
Is that the video you’re proudest of?
No, it’s not. I’m not proudest of the video that is most popular. I’m proudest of some other videos that are less popular but they have a bigger message. So there’s a video about Israel and Palestine, about Jews versus Arabs. How we treat each other, racism in my country.
The one with the 15-year-old girl?
Yes. That’s the one I’m most proud of.
Have you ever made any videos that you consider flops — that didn’t get the viewership you wanted?
Do you know the best baseball player in the world? I don’t, either, but apparently, the best baseball player in the world has an average hit rate of 38 percent. Which means 38 percent of his shots succeed, and the remaining 62 percent, they fail. And if that’s the baseball player’s hit rate, my hit rate is 35. So 65 percent of my videos can be a miss, in a way.
By your standards, what’s a miss?
By my standards, it’s a miss is if it’s a forgettable video. If it’s a fluff idea. I’ve made a lot of videos that are fluff. I mean, you’ve seen me go in there, you know, having fun at a beach. And that’s cute. That’s fluff. That’s forgettable next year. You remembered the 15-year-old kid in Israel-Palestine. You will not remember the videos I made about tourism or about beaches. People care about the actual value addition. And so this is why I’m excited about the sustainable tourism thing is because it’s actual value addition, rather than “Hey, guys, come and see, it’s beautiful! Whoo!”
Just being a travel influencer.
Yes. I don’t want to be a travel influencer; I just want to be Nas.
What sort of content are viewers not interested in?
Well, they can be interested in this stuff. That’s actually a trick question. I know people are interested a lot in the environment, in humans. So we try to make videos about these two topics all the time. I don’t like making videos about objects as much. So I don’t I don’t make videos about temples. I don’t make videos about buildings. Unless it’s a f***ing crazy building.
I love your tagline, “There’s more love in the Philippines.” What can you say about the love of your life, your girlfriend Alyne (Tamir, who makes videos as Dear Alyne)?
She’s great. Out of the tens of thousands of people that I met in this journey, she’s the best one.
Is it easy to travel with your girlfriend?
It’s just not easy to be together for us. We butt heads a lot. I think the problem with Nas Daily and relationships is that at some point, when you give your life to work, you find that you cannot give enough of your life to relationship or to family. And so it comes at the expense. So this is the reason why it’s hard to have a relationship.
What about your friend Agon (Hare, known online as video maker Project Nightfall)? Does it end up being like a Three’s Company situation with the three of you traveling together?
He’s our third wheel. (laughs) He’s great. He’s the easiest guy to get along with. He knows when to be present. And he knows when to not be present. And he’s kind of like a counselor in a way. He’s a kind guy. He’s a very selfless guy. And we’re very lucky to have him.
What are your travel essentials, aside from your 10 T-shirts?
It’s actually 20 now because I have an apartment.
My camera, obviously, we have a DSLR. And a drone. I think camera, drone, T-shirts are the only things I need. Everything else is secondary, including deodorant.
You always seem so “on,” so happy and energetic. Don’t you ever get tired, sad or depressed?
That’s why we take drugs — we call it sleep. The drug of sleep. Quite honestly, it’s simple. The only solution to low energy is sleep. It is not Coke, caffeine, alcohol or Red Bull. It is just six or seven hours of sleep.
But I also think we’re high on life. I mean, when you have 1,000 people screaming at you and telling you, “Wow! Yes! Awesome!” you’re going to get more energy from them. So we suck a lot of energy from the audience.
Would you say your Harvard education helped make you the success you are today?
I think the Harvard education is the same as education anywhere in the world. What I really loved about Harvard is that they think of you as a loser if you don’t have a job a year before you graduate. If you don’t get paid $100,000 a year, like, you’re doing bad. Wow. And so there’s this insane pressure where you have to succeed. And if you don’t succeed, you’re odd, you know, you’re different. I made a video about it today, actually — you are the people that you befriend. And it just so happened that all my friends at Harvard wanted to succeed in life. And this is what pushed me to want to succeed in life.
How is your memoir coming along?
The book is done. It’s not a personal memoir. It’s a summary of the best 100 days — the best 100 stories — of the Nas Daily journey. Obviously the Philippines is mentioned in it; it’s a whole chapter on the Philippines. It’s coming out Nov. 5. I’ve never done a book in my life, and so it’s very, very scary. I hope it sells.
You finished writing your memoir at the age of 27. Do you ever feel the dreaded quarter-life crisis? Have you ever asked yourself, What am I going to do with the remaining 64 percent of my life?
Ah, that’s a good question. These are hard questions. (long pause)
I’m scared of not finding excitement anymore. This is why I think I’m going to change careers in, like, 10 years or so, because I’m a video-maker now. I used to be a software engineer before. And then in five years, I want to be a businessman. And then after that, I think politics is interesting. I don’t think I’ll make Facebook videos for the rest of my life.
What is a typical day for you like?
A typical day is you wake up at 9 a.m., you launch a video at 9. Then for the next five hours, you think of a video idea, you try to script it, what am I going to make a video about today? Okay, it’s 2 p.m. Now we start shooting it. You have to shoot it before the sun goes down — 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., four hours, shoot, shoot, shoot, boom, boom, boom, 6 p.m. done. Then 6 p.m. to 11 you need to edit, and you need to get food. So 6 to 11 we edit, edit, edit, then launch at 11. Go to sleep by 12, wake up at 9…
So it was constant like this for 1,000 days. It is not easy. Now my life is a bit easier. Now I can just be like, I’m going to go to the Philippines and make one video in a week! So we invest more in-depth into the videos. And now we’re building a company in Singapore, hiring people, renting an office, building an office, getting clients… all that stuff is taking a lot of my time now.
So, a company based on Nas Daily?
Yes, we’re building the Nas Company. “Nas” means “people” in Arabic. We create videos for other clients. And that either goes with their channels or our channels. We’re building Nas University, which is a way to teach people how to create content, teach kids and adults how to create videos like us. And then maybe we’ll go to the travel space, maybe a Nas Hotel or something. I think that’ll be very, very fun to have a physical offline space where people can have offline interactions, just like the videos.
After all your travels, what’s the most eye-opening thing you’ve learned about people and the human condition?
That they’re all the same. I think it’s beautiful that all humans are the same, because it really helps you look at people equally.
Where are you headed to next? What’s still on your bucket list?
We don’t have a travel bucket list anymore, unfortunately. We kind of exhausted it with Nas Daily, you know, 55 countries — we finished the travel. Now my bucket list is to build a sustainable company.
Do you think vlogs can change the world?
No, because we don’t make vlogs. Vlogs are the 10-minute videos of people having fun on YouTube: “Hey, guys, I’m here with my friends. We are having fun.” That’s 10-minute entertainment. I doubt this will be revolutionary. I think it entertains a lot of people, but we don’t make 10-minute vlogs. What we try to do is create videos rather than vlogs, and our videos are one minute, and they’re really not about our daily life. It’s about things that are around the world, things that we see that are interesting. So, do I think videos in general can change the world? I think so. I think if you change one life, you change the world entire, right? So we definitely change one life. If anything, my life. (laughs)
At the meet-up, you hear stories — that’s why we love the meet-ups. There was a girl who said, “I’m from California and my boyfriend didn’t want me to go visit the Philippines because he thought it was dirty and dangerous. And I showed him your videos. And he was like, ‘Oh, it’s not as bad as I thought.’ And that’s why I was able to go visit the Philippines.”
I never made a video for this specific reason. I never thought anyone would ever get in that situation, but it helped that girl. Amazing, beautiful, right? And I think if there’s one of her, there’s definitely millions.
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