As we all know by now, TikTok has taken the social media world by storm with its plethora of trends and video types; however, a more recent trend has left schools robbed — literally.
For those of you who don't know, a devious lick is essentially a student vandalizing or stealing an item from their school/college and proclaiming it to be a "devious lick" via social media. I know, very interesting concept: break the law and then admit it on the internet for the entire world to see. And just like a Netflix serial killer docuseries, people eat it up.
Oddly enough, the most popular place to "devious lick"? The bathroom.
Perhaps it's because bathrooms don't have security cameras or an authority figure monitoring them, but school bathrooms have most definitely fallen victim to the students trying to climb the TikTok popularity scale through petty crime. One of the most popular examples I've seen while scrolling through my "for you" page is the stolen hand sanitizer in the toilet.
For whatever reason, throwing the stuff you use to clean your hands in the toilet has become a great starting point for the aspiring "devious lickers". Another one I've seen pop up a few times is the entire paper towel dispenser taken from off of the wall.
I myself have witnessed a few of these licks at my own school.
Being in college, I kind of assumed that there would be less of this due to the higher stakes associated with college. I couldn't have been more wrong. The devious licking here at my school is like high school devious licking on steroids. From stealing couches from common areas to ripping room numbers off the wall, we've certainly had our fair share of this social media trend.
My friend who goes to another college even told me somebody went as far as to attempt to steal a desk from a classroom (spoiler alert: he failed miserably).
As I said before, unfortunately for those participating, this is illegal.
Stealing and vandalizing for likes and fame might seem great and all, but there are consequences for breaking the law — even if you admit it on the internet (shocker). Teens across the United States are being arrested and charged for their "devious lick", making many start to question if the laughs and shares are actually worth it.
Regardless of what happens, it will eventually die down.
Like all social media trends, it will soon become less popular and end up on the back burner of peoples' minds, likely dubbed an iconic "internet sensation" of the fall of 2021. Remember how we were all jamming to "Gangnam Style" and obsessing over duct tape purses? Exactly my point: trends are called trends for a reason, and this will die down eventually. In fact, TikTok has already taken to deleting videos involving devious licking and blocking all of the hashtags.
Stealing Mike D GIF by Beastie BoysGiphy
