Photo: TikTok / YouTube
Vandalism isn't cool.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Sep 17, 2021
Three Florida teens from two separate high schools have been arrested and charged with petty theft and criminal mischief related to a stolen soap dispenser and a damaged sink.
One of the students, a 15-year-old from Bartow High School, damaged a soap dispenser and stole another one — doing the damage to look “cool” as part of the social media trend, reported Bartlow police.
What is the ‘Devious Lick’ TikTok trend?
The ‘devious licks’ simply mean stealing something from the school. Some Tik Toks show students stealing sinks, toilets, soap dispensers, water fountains — someone even placed a basketball hoop inside of a bathroom stall, for whatever reason.
A lick means a valuable theft, and devious means the skillful use of underhanded tactics to achieve a goal.
Schools all across the country are reporting instances of vandalism and stolen properties within bathrooms, classrooms, and even a stop sign from in front of the school.
The 'devious lick' trend was reportedly started by @jugg4elias — a now-deleted TikTok account — who posted a video on September 1st, showing him pulling out a box of disposable masks from his backpack.
The caption read, “A month into school absolutely devious lick. Should’ve brought a mask.”
The Tik Tok received more than 239,000 views in a week. From then on, more people caught on to the trend.
Another poster, user @dtx.2cent, made a Tik Tok that got over 7.2 million views showing him revealing a hand sanitizer dispenser that he had stolen from the school. His account has also been deleted as a result.
Plenty of people on social media seem to think it’s funny, referencing times in the past when people have committed these crazy acts or sharing whichever video they thought to be the funniest.
Police have condemned 'devious licks' after a Florida teen was arrested.
Polk County Sheriff, Grady Judd, doesn’t find it quite as funny. “This is not a childish mistake. This is high school kids doing an organized criminal act and they’re going to be held appropriately accountable,” he said.
“It all started with a Tik Tok video, a devious lick,” he said. “Well, we’re going to give you an arrest lick if you commit a criminal lick.”
According to Tik Tok’s community guidelines, it’s against the rules to post any videos that enable criminal activity or breaking the laws, and as such, they have started taking action.
When you search the term ‘devious lick’, you will now see a message that says “This phrase may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.”
Videos are being taken down, and legal action is being taken everywhere — with students also facing suspensions or expulsion from their schools.
Seminole County Public Schools Communication Officer, Michael Lawrence, said “These are long lasting repercussions that a kid may think it’s funny at the time but it could impact them for many years to come.”
He also said that students and their parents will be responsible for paying for the repairs.
While the term "devious licks" is now unsearchable on the platform, users are misspelling the phrase to try and get around the new bans.
A misspelled version with a hashtag ‘#devoiuslick’ was still showing search results as of Wednesday afternoon and had more than 388,000 views.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice and politics.