Residents decry vulgarity at Festival 2025 events
Scores of residents took to Facebook this week to protest the vulgarity being displayed by adults and children at this year’s Emancipation festivities, while calling for dignity and decency to be restored to the important annual celebrations.
The initial complaint was made by one resident who wrote that he was embarrassed by the behaviour of patrons at the Festival Village and that the behaviour is not what the society should uphold as Virgin Islands pride.
“From 13-year-olds smoking and drinking, to me spending the whole night chasing off young men trying to light up next to my booth, it was chaos without conscience,” the user said in his post.
He said he was ashamed of the profanity and vulgarity in the music showcased on the “cultural stage” saying a certain international dancehall act was not uplifting or fitting for the national celebrations. The disgruntled resident then drew attention to several young people who were abusing drugs and alcohol.
“Over 1,000 young people roaming around aimlessly, not spending a dollar, just soaking up noise and nonsense. I saw no respect for culture, no sense of discipline, no cultural pride — just nonsense and the blind leading the blind,” the resident wrote.
His lengthy rant soon racked up over 500 sad reactions and over 100 comments from residents who hold a similar view that Virgin Islands pride needs to be restored and displayed at the annual Emancipation festivities, which are meant to commemorate a significant milestone in the history of Caribbean people.
“It is sad if that was perceived as culture. Alcohol and marijuana are dangerous in the young brains. It affects their cognitive function and later their lungs, where they will eventually get lung diseases such as cancers and chronic obstructive lung disease,” said one resident.
“I always speak on these subjects of drugs and vulgarity around minors being absolutely damaging and not to be mixed with ‘culture’,” another commenter wrote.
Others bemoaned the depravity that beset society, saying this new way of thinking gave way to festivals like the controversial Vybz Kartel concert that was recently enjoyed by many in the community.
“You have no blows to take my brother. Our Emancipation celebration is now an annual music fest. The BVI is way, way out there. Remember just a few months back we had an imported artist screaming on the top of his lungs VzG F..k all yuh,” one person wrote.
“Show us our leader then show us our children…Start from the head go str88 down. They care more about party in itself, not culture,” another resident said.
“Wow this hurt my heart. Just reading it, I had a visual running through my head. It is really a shame and those in charge see nothing wrong with the direction we are heading,” another social media user added.
While many others agreed, some commenters expressed that the trend of vulgarity has been prominent at local festivities for some time now, adding that they’ve been choosing to stay home during these important social gatherings.
Parents who commented stated that they’ve been keeping their children away from these public events where obscenity and vulgarity are rampant and called for guardians across the territory to instil decency and good morals in their children.
In the meantime, Eighth District Representative Marlon Penn referred to the festival events and outcry from social media during the House of Assembly sitting on July 31. He asked the community to refrain from bashing youth and suggested that meaningful programmes are needed to engage them.
Officials in the BVI have previously called for the territory to move away from the carnival-like events for emancipation celebrations, saying organisers should aim for a festival with more wholesome and educational elements.
They’ve pointed to Guyana as an example, saying their yearly celebrations are wholesome and worthy of imitation by a nation wishing to commemorate the true meaning of emancipation.
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The behavior is becoming a norm; a crying shame!
That is one of the true norms in the BVI. Set of nasty dirty STD women walking around with poor hygiene and stinking. You can smell the funk from some of these women a mile away. As a man, I would not touch them with a yard stick or take a million dollars to touch one those dirty skanks.
But where dey get da std?
Your not a man and probably MUY FEO.
1. A set of ghetto-looking, ratchet, skank-looking females advertizing their privates thinking they look good when they look like trash and don’t realize a lot of the males look at that is someone to screw not a long term commitment. Look like video- (can’t say the rest of the word)
2. From the night of the Torch light parade, after entering the village, the weed was stink behind various booths (stink smell comes to the front)
3. Police officers are doing NOTHING about all the weed smoking that hits you as you pass by certain booths.
4. VI Festival and Fairs Committee, this is NOT BVI CULTURE…it’s an overrated music fest with most artists promoting vulgarity and promiscuity.
5. Parents/Guardians STOP LETTING YOUR UNDERAGE CHILDREN OUT YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT YOU/UNSUPERVISED AND DEFINITELY DO NOT LET THEM ATTEND VILLAGE TO SEE CRIMINALS AND VULGARITY ON STAGE WITH OR WITHOUT YOU!!!!!!!
For the IGNORANT FEW WHO SEE IT AS COMPLAINING TRY GET SOME COMMON SENSE AND MORALS/VALUES FROM TALKING OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF YOUR MOUTH!!!
Can’t be calling God’s name in your mouth then praising DEVIL WORK!!!!!!!
Crowd in there singing the one song they know while Christopher Martin on stage “Goodness of God” all while drinking rum, half naked, and singing a set of worthless tunes before and after that…can’t serve God and the devil at the same time SMH!!
That’s what Vincent should call demonic but obviously they really don’t care.
Well that’s the administration that you all voted for and wanted in place!! Vinny can go church this Sunday like always claims he does and ask for forgiveness for the people that have lost their moral compasses just like his colleagues he rides and dies with over country and people!
Well from the standard set by Andrew fahie and then now premiere Wheatley bring a criminal to the BVI to be celebrated, with him going on stage too to gyrate and pay Vybz Kartel quarter million USD, and plenty party lifestyle as gangster do, the youth have learned and used that as a barometer to test their outings in life.
Premiere Wheatley ain’t even going listen to you all no more, he survived two motion of no confidence plus he selling us out to UK for power so he invincible, go ahead a complain to yourself and grumble he don’t care about you.
Festival makes me sick to the stomach. 13 year olds roaming through the village drinking and lighting up joints, young girls walking around dress like little sluts on the stroll, x rated performance on stage with these low level dirty disgusting females that was probably smelling fro the lack of water and proper hygiene. That band show be ashamed of themselves. Festival is F up this year and have gotten worse. An apology should be issued to the people that spend their money to come here from outside.
Everyone of those residents are OUT OF SHAPE UNATTRACTIVE PEOPLE. MOST OF THEM SMELL NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO CAUSE OF THEIR DIET. Any Booth owner in Festival Village crying is because you stuck up people don’t like you and you aint making money.This directed to the rich clown crying in the media. Time and change waits on no one.
I want them to MOVE AWAY FROM THESE ACTS SO THOSE SCHUPID MS DON’T MAKE ANY MONEY IN THE VILLAGE.
When you do what you do, You get what you get.
What about the dressing of our women? Oh Lawd!! Butt outside!! I thought I was in a strip club when I ventured into the Festival Village. Oh Lawd!! Nothing for the imagination anymore. It is all in plain sight. Young and old women. Oh Lawd!! A young woman bend over in front of me and I… OH Lawd!!! Called the police.
Learn your BIBLE from TALKING PISS!!!!!!
Revelation 16:15
“Look, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who is alert and remains clothed so that he may not go around naked and people see his shame.”
You all full speed worshipping/idolizing ancestors, the same ancestors WHO HAVE TO ANSWER TO GOD AS WELL!!!!!!!
It’s the old cougars that have me laughing inside with a straight face.the old cougars is competing with the young cubs. The old cougars need to dress their age and stop embarrassing themselves. This festival is bringing out the worst of the worst, one big circus, the only thing missing is the big tent and the ring master.y’all can keep that S.
I am hosting two friends from Colorado and when the stank fest started on stage we decided it was time to leave the village. It is such a shame to see females acting like they were in the middle of the ghetto acting like untrained wild animals. They looked like they were funky and stinking. Wonder if the crab lice and fleas had a chance to make their escape from the funk. Those women on stage were low level ghetto trash that the stripper pole would reject. To top it off there are men that would lay down with those crab lice and flea infested women.
No more August Festival. It just gets worse every year!
I did not go but the tree of knowledge has people ashamed of other peoples bodies. You want to control other people like those desert women that can only show their eyes. God created us naked and the devil led man to know shame. I guess we think our ancestors in Africa were dressed down modest. Get over yourselves.
This has nothing to do with control of desert women. It is about women having dignity and respect for themselves and their bodies.
AH yes i heard police was getting a lot of push back and the festival wanted zero police presence this year….. i wonder why….
Mali don night: set of smoking, thugs, criminals. half naked minors and gang members flocked the festival grounds….
now another night we hear seeing a fight that police try to breakup only to get stabbed…
so imagine if it had zero police presence? yall would of been like a set of wild animals in there.
i hope yall wish come true and you start to see the significance of order, self respect, morals, laws, and police presence
to all the young people that upset and giving push back against the older generation who are calling out yall lack of morals, self respect and vulgar behaviour…. i guess this is what yall want right?
this is wah yall like to embrace? attacking on another and stabbing police… smoking your brains out with 12yr olds? dry humping one another and having 12yr girls walk around half naked? .. young people yall truly dont see ntn wrong with this?
having minors get drunk and watch yall young adults do all kinda nonsense in their presence for them to copy and be influenced? you can argue well dont send your kids to festival…true but the younger youths still look to yall as role models not the older generation. the festival committee is to blame as well yall got artist coming here singing about sex,drugs,gangs,violence etc and one even big up a well known criminal who dies recently…
mind you there is no sex offender list while all of this is going down… imagine all the offenders that attend these nights….
young people and the younger youths you guys are straight up glorifying criminality and see ntn wrong with it…. but when crime start to surge again….when 13yrs old with ak47 break into your homes… when you start to see a huge number of highschool drop outs… when you start to see surge in domestic violence and single mothers…when you start see more gangs like the young money boys gang this affects all of us old generation and new.
all I can now to everyone who see ntn wrong with what takes place during festival is:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil
Festival should be cancelled, and a celebration of our freedom should be celebrated in houses of worship. Once the x rated so called festival is cancelled as well as the bad behavior, government should them consider reinstating the festivities.
For real, it seems like those women that smells is always up in men faces. You all should smell the ones with the BBL, no matter how they clean themselves or how much perfume or body spray they use they still stink.as a man I am not walking or going anywhere with any stink smelling woman. Then you got the women that don’t practice body hygiene. I don’t care what anyone say those women that was up on stage like they were in a porn movie they stank. The singer that they were up on stage throwing themselves all over like she dogs in heat, I wonder if he went home and decontaminated himself from the funk that was all up in his face. That was nasty. Those women can’t even dance.or know how to dance. Their bodies is not in shape to dance. So therefore they resort to looking like skanks on stage thinking that is cute. Only here they can get away with the foolishness. They travel and get on stage, they will get booed and the audience will start throwing plastic water bottles filled with water at the stage.
I just wanna say this! Why mention BBL……?? every BBL does not STINK so do not try to make it seem as if it’s wrong in wanting to be the best version of yourself. Some of the BBL’s look damn good! Ppl will always talk no matter what. I’m so sick of ppl having an issue with women who get their bodies done! If you wanna talk about dressing and the vulgarity talk about that. Geez man!
Monday parade will be even worse. Dry humping, sleazy costume with breasts and asses falling out and young. Cildren watching it all. A sad day for the so called “culture” of these islands.
Bachanalian wutlissniss!
Classy cultural creativity has been sacrificed on the altar of crass vulgarity. The hypocrisy over women’s attire…or lack thereof…is mind blowing (or should that be ‘eye-popping’?). And if it’s really about gender equality, I wonder what the reaction would be if (or when) men start ‘stringing up’ their/our nether regions with not much left to even the most overactive imagination.
And why subject the children to this as spectators…AND PARTICIPANTS!? At least, be kind to the growing minds.
And there isn’t enough space here to deal with the baseless, blatant, unimaginative lyrics in some of the songs. Double entendre anyone?
All across the Caribbean region – and Caribbean diaspora – we are witnessing this race to ‘the bottom’.
SMELL DA BATTY DEY!
Over to the sociologists to address the link between societal decline and its own soundtrack.
Thankfully, there are still some instances of true cultural creativity.
HAD HOLLERED OUT ABOUT THE LOST CULTURE , AND WHAT IT HAS BECOME , SO HOW ALL OF A SUDDEN ITS NEWS / THIS IS THE DIRECTION IT HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED INTO AND ITS INFLUENCED BY DRUGS / ITS IN OUR FOOD / DRINKS / SMOKES / GUMMIES ETC TO TARGET THE KIDS BY DESIGN SO WHO AIN’T GET HOOKED INTENTIONALLY CAN BE HOOKED ACCIDENTALLY EVEN THE MEDICATIONS CONTAINS – SIDE EFFECTS / AND THE DOCTORS DON’T MENTION IT TO THEIR PATIENTS , AND IF YOU CONTRACT ANY SIDE EFFECTS ALL THEY DO IS CHANGE YOUR MEDICATION WHICH WILL INTRODDUCE YOU TO ANOTHER SET AND IF YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM CANNOT FIGHT THEM OFF THEY WILL BE ADDED TO OTHER SET OF SIDE EFFECTS YOU GOT BEFORE ( ITS LIKE TWO PEOPLE EAT THE SAME FISH AND ONE GOT FISH POISON AND THE OTHER DIDN’T / SO THATS THE WAY IT IS • NEXT TIME YOU GO TO YOUR DOCTOR MAKE SURE YOU LOOK STRAIGHT IN THEIR EYES AND ASK IF THERE IS ANY SIDE EFFECTS IN THE MEDICATION IF ANY IS PRESCRIBED TO YOU , BEFORE YOU TAKE IT ( OR READ THE LEAFLET IN SIDE FOR YOURSELF
•
But a bunch of dirty nasty looking women up and down the village selling themselves to the highest bidder. They are teaching the young girls all of the nastiness. One set of dirty nasty classless bottom of the cess pool worthless ghetto trash women walking around village. They can wear all the bat wings on their eye lashes the fake lace fronts the eagle talons on their fingers two pounds of makeup and the shorts digging up the crack of their stinking behinds and camel toes on display. Cess pool ghetto trash that will make you loose your appetite if you are eating food in the village. Can you imagine what the ghetto skanks is going to look like and smell like in the tramp? Nothing but a set of stinking dirty women bending forward and letting the drunks grind on their stinking garbage disposal smelling behinds
This sounds personal. Who trouble you?
Noise Pollution in the form of the deafiningly loud, heavy bass music from the Festival Village has also gotten worse and worst, affecting all who live in the vicinity. The thumping and thuding heavy bass line music is so loud and powerful that the concrete walls of houses shake, louver windows rattlee and glasses and cups and saucers in kitchen cabinets also rattles. We have an aging, sick in the house who has not been able to rest at night since the festivale village opened. Thsi ungodly noise went on until after 6 this morning.Perhaps the good Lord will bless us with rain over the next several nights.
It is even worse than “Noise Pollution” describes it. The constant, heavy BOOM, BOOM, BOOM of the music from the festival village really does make the concrete walls shake and vibrate. It makes it feel like your head exploding and your eardrum collapsing – this is NOT HEALTHY!!!! This noise pollution from the festival village is, unfortunately, another example of the deteriorating and dirtiness of our capitol Road Town. Hon Luce Hodge Smith, this is your district, do better.
Living with 2 elderly road town residents who are now quite sick with the nightly deafening noise
Shhh folks…simply a horde of
expected. Evidence of said truths. Note the open favorite and most popular endearment for their women by Black men is the “B” word aka female canines.You made your bed BVI. The character of these VI continues to be pillaged courtesy of the VI. No sympathy here. Throwing your pearls to pigs is an act of ingratitude and sadly,there are consequences.
” It is about women having dignity and respect for themselves and their bodies.” Dignity to some is a full body covering and not going to town without a man permission. Before our time it mean no interracial activity. no white and black relationship that was not decent.
That is what the desert men say when the women are forced to have a man to go out in public. Decency they call it. It is gender oppression.
To the other one “Look, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who is alert and remains clothed so that he may not go around naked and people see his shame.” You say our ancestors will be judge to you woman breast is a sin. Idiotic.
Revelations is written in parables. Clothed does not mean T-shirt and pants. Jesus spoke in parables for us to look beyond the surface of the material world.
Again get over yourselves or cast the first stone. Jesus said love god and love each other. That is Christian period. The bible also says a scorner is an abomination.
The people can be naked or topless Jesus does not care. Follow his example to show how a Christian behaves instead of shaming people to live your way. Man & woman were meant to live naked in Eden. They were not created to feel shame.
Well this ain’t EDEN MISSY.If you want to live like EDEN go isolate yourself in the bush. There you can live naked and free as you so choose. And by the way, I love the way the dessert women as you call them dress. The dessert women DONOT whore around with multiple men or walk around the streets half naked like most of you do.
I have been wishing for the rain to come down and wash the village out. This way people that lives in the vicinity can be able to get a good night sleep. I will be glad when this noise nightmare is over next week.
The Premier for this. He have control of everything and is up in everything. Everything about this Festival is one big ridiculous mess.
Is dedicated to WH**S AND SKANKS ON STROLL. TO MANY WH**S AND SKANKS RUINING THE FESTIVAL WITH THE NASTY, NASTY. VILLAGE IS SKANKVILLE THIS YEAR.
When children are small and you dress them half naked whst do you expect!
East End festival committee idolizing Eric… as an honourary … what do you expect !!!
Look at who we have as heroes and role models
Leader giving Cartel priority over health care system
Her… smoking his weed on his radio station live in front of all
Political leaders fathering children with other women other than their wives
Politicians bringing in call girls
The country has lost its way long time ago
The Festival is just a culmination of everything