Amid the controversy between Nas Daily creator Nuseir Yassin, world renowned tattoo artist Whang-Od, and chef Louise Mabulo, the Nas Daily Facebook page has seen a huge drop in followers.
Over 300,000 users have unfollowed the page, according to Facebook analytics tool CrowdTangle. The bulk of unfollows came from August 5 at 275,200, this happened after Whang-Od’s grand niece Grace Palica’s accused Yassin’s online learning platform, Nas Academy, of being a scam. Grace claimed through a post in her social media that Whang-Od did not sign any contract with Nas Daily. Hence, there was no proper agreement or consent obtained for her grandmother to be included in Nas Academy to conduct an online tattoo course. Nas Daily FB page drops from 20.96 million followers a week ago to 20.68 million overnight.
Yassin, on the other hand, said that Nas Daily was able to discuss the contract terms with Whang-Od prior to her agreeing to the contract by affixing her thumbmark. He also revealed that all the revenue from the online course will be used to support Whang Od’s family and relatives.
Nuseir Yassin on behalf of his company Nas Daily is yet to give his official statement on the controversy, but as of this writing the Whang-Od course has already been taken down from the list of paid courses offered in Nas Academy.
Meanwhile, Professor Nestor Castro, Ph.D., a cultural anthropologist from the University of the Philippines Diliman expressed his two cents regarding the issue between Nas Daily and Apo Whang-Od. “Whang-od is not just an individual artist but she is also a member of the Butbut Tribe of Kalinga. Her skill on the art of traditional tattooing is derived from the indigenous knowledge of generations of Kalinga ancestors. Thus, this indigenous knowledge is collectively owned (although it may be individually practiced) by the Butbut. Thus, the consent of the members of the Butbut is necessary if this knowledge is to be shared to outsiders. Getting the permission of one individual is not enough,” Prof. Castro said.
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