By Ben R. Williams
MARTINSVILLE, VA — Local social media has been abuzz this week after an influencer visited the city of Martinsville and shared a negative review on TikTok.
In the video, influencer Kody Davison explained that he travels across the country trying to find the best cities.
“I was doing a little bit of research and found Martinsville, Virginia,” he said in the video. “It looked really good and I was excited to try it out.”
Unfortunately, Davison said, his experience was immediately marred by sticky sidewalks and a long wait.
“Normally when I go to a city, I can get the gist of it in 30, maybe 40 minutes,” he said in the video. “I had to spend two hours reading 46 different news articles just to figure out what’s going on with city council and the former city manager, and I’m still confused. It’s absolutely absurd.”
In the popular TikTok video, Davison also said that he had issues with the high prices.
“Who pays $46 million to renovate a municipal building?” he said, adding that the current building was cold, dark, and seemed to have a mysterious gritty texture.
“I drove an hour and forty-five minutes to get here,” Davison said. “I had really hoped for a normal, quality city experience, and not an embarrassing and confusing mess of accusations, lawsuits, and, for some reason, hot tubs.”
Davison’s review struck a nerve in Martinsville, with dozens of citizens weighing in to defend the city.
“Valid constructive criticism has absolutely no place in local government,” said one anonymous commenter.
“I’ve never had a bad experience in Martinsville, but then again, I’m friends with the owners,” said another.
However, some social media users agreed with Davison’s assessment of the city.
“Martinsville is too expensive and the quality just isn’t there,” said one commenter. “Now if you want to have a good, affordable experience, you need to go to Clarence’s, which is of course the seat of government for the town of Ridgeway. They know what they’re doing over there.”
In a press release, the City of Martinsville responded to Davison’s review.
“We’ve seen the video,” the press release said. “Did he catch us on a bad year? Yes. In fact, probably the hardest year we’ve had in more than a century. We’re incredibly understaffed as several of our council members are tied up in litigation. His experience was his experience, and it was a bad one.”
However, the release continues, “this city should not be defined by just one continuous string of crippling public humiliations. We’re going to keep showing up, no matter how many people beg us not to.”
Davison has yet to respond to the release as he’s currently reading 30 years of newspaper articles to wrap his head around what’s going on with reversion.
