BETHLEHEM, West Bank – A year ago, Nuseir Yassin, a 24-year-old Harvard graduate, was living in New York city, working for a successful hi-tech company and earning $120,000 a year. Despite it all, he couldn’t escape the feeling that life was passing him by.
So for the past 328 days, he has been travelling the world — from Nigeria to Myanmar, the Philippines to Mount Fuji — making daily one-minute videos that shine a light on the people, places and passions he comes across: good, bad and in-between.
The style and format — quick cuts, an engaging delivery and snappy subtitles — have helped make the videos go viral: at last count, his Nas Daily page on Facebook had 500,000 likes and some of his mini-films have earned 25 million views.
“I just wanted to do something that felt meaningful,” Mr Yassin, who goes by the name Nas, told Reuters as he set about making his 328th video, in Bethlehem, where he decided to explore how distant Palestine can feel versus how real it is.
“I realised that I’d lived 32 per cent of my life and there was so much more I wanted to do, so I quit my job,” he said by way of explaining his decision, one that left his colleagues in New York and his Palestinian-Israeli parents shocked.
