On November 8, Ninong Ry had an open conversation on his YouTube vlog with culinary content maker and businessman Erwan Heussaff to talk about the development of his FEATR material and the obligations of storytelling in the Philippines. What started off as a discussion about cuisine and culture swiftly expanded into more profound and unsettling social realities, some of which many people would prefer to ignore.

Erwan did not back down from challenging subjects when questioned about the stuff he had originally intended to add but removed from his videos due to possible YouTube flags. “I mean we see a lot of gruesome things like animal butchery, slaughtering, and everything which is fine. We’ve covered a few times,” he said.

However, some topics were off limits. “There are some subjects before that we would stay away from like child pornography, like when we were doing our Siargao series, we actually didn’t put this in because I wasn’t really comfortable with it.”

He clarified that the first objective was to safeguard the image of the Philippines by always highlighting the positive facets of the culture. But as time went on, Erwan realized how flawed that way of thinking was.  “Before there was this idea to protect the image of what the Philippines is, and our culture, and to always try to shine a positive light on it. But now the way I look at it I think that’s a disservice to Filipino people to not see the reality of things. And so, I think now we’re a bit more accepting in kind of showing those things of speaking out politically and kind of like all those things.”

The topic of how the idealized perception of the Philippines can obscure reality was then brought up.  Erwan pointed out that presenting both the positive and the difficult aspects of a story is a necessary component of being honest.