The new “Devious Licks” TikTok trend has been spreading to schools throughout the country since September. In this new “trend,” students are vandalizing or stealing school property, often recording themselves to the song “Ski Ski BasedGod” by Lil B to post on TikTok. Common “licks” include ripping soap or paper towel dispensers off of bathroom walls, and sometimes even to the extent of stealing bathroom stall doors or exit signs.

Many schools in Utah have also been experiencing this vandalism, including Taylorsville High School. “I know some thermometers were stolen out of the kitchen,” said SBO Cameron Stewart. “They don’t even bother putting the soap up [in the boys’ bathroom] anymore because it’s just going to get stolen. I know that some students tried to steal the Wilbur costume but we locked it away.”

“Like many districts across the nation, Granite has been negatively impacted by this latest social media craze. A handful of our secondary schools have received significant damage to our restrooms and other facilities,” Ben Horsley from Granite School District told KSL. “We are communicating with parents to ask for their assistance to help curb this growing problem.”  

Precautions are being taken in order to prevent this harm to our school. Admin are out in the halls more often between lunches and passing periods. Teachers are being encouraged to limit allowing students in the hall during class, and when they do, making sure they are given a hall pass. The new Truancy Ticket Policy is also an attempt to lower the rates of vandalism. 

Those who are caught participating in this trend will receive “a three-day suspension and [are] referred to our school SRO (school resource officer) for charges,” according to assistant principal Jordan Kjar. 

Other schools in Granite District are also discouraging the vandalism and attempting to make up for the things stolen or destroyed. “For a couple weeks they made announcements about it,” said senior Annie Wilhelm from Murray High School. “At one point we actually had to start paying to get into football games (rather than showing our student ID to get in for free). They used the $5 game fee to pay for some of the damaged property.”

Many students have even been taking matters into their own hands and have been reporting the vandalism to SafeUT. The Washington Post mentions Utah’s efforts to prevent the TikTok trend. “In Utah, students can access an app called SafeUT, managed by the Utah State Board of Education. Originally launched as a suicide intervention tool, students can also use it to report unsafe behavior: In recent days, students […] have used it to report damage associated with the Devious Licks challenge.”

If you witness any of the vandalism taking place, or even see the aftermath, please contact SafeUT or a school administrator.

Precautionary actions are also being taken on a national level. “TikTok told USA TODAY it was removing content related to ‘devious licks,’ including the hashtag #deviouslicks and ‘redirecting hashtags and search results to our Community Guidelines to discourage such behavior.’” More information about this article can be found as usatoday.com.

Emails have been sent out to parents across the country and the state, encouraging them to talk to their children about this consequential trend. “We need your assistance in helping our students understand that such acts are criminal (a class B misdemeanor) and such damage to schools is a burden to taxpayers and takes away from the welcoming and safe facility we are working to provide to our students,” read an email sent out by an elementary school in Granite School District. “Such acts will be aggressively investigated and charged and invariably, when convicted, students and families will be responsible to compensate for the damages.”

 But these precautionary measures are doing little to prevent students from participating in the challenge. The TikTok trend is still thriving with alternate hashtags such as #deviousilck, #despicablelick, and many others. “Before TikTok removed it, the hashtag #deviouslick had gotten more than 175 million views,” according to USA Today. 

The trend is out. Millions of people are aware of it, which means it will take some work to bring it to an end. 

Taylorsville’s seminary program is also trying to combat this trend with the #dogoodchallenge. “We created a list of several positive and helpful things that people (especially those in school) could do to spread a positive attitude,” said sophomore Alexia Shaw, who created the challenge. “Each item on the list is designed to cheer someone up, show gratitude for our teachers, be helpful to those around us and the school, and many other ways.”

Seminary students are working to share and spread this challenge through social media and throughout the school. “I have already seen it’s effectiveness,” Shaw said. “There were many good things that I saw coming out of the challenge, with some classmates saying how it was fun, challenging but worth it, and the reactions that they saw from the people they helped.”

For more information about the #dogoodchallenge, visit the Taylorsville Seminary building for a flyer.

The Devious Licks TikTok challenge is becoming a serious national problem that schools aren’t sure how to handle. Students need to do all they can to keep the school a safe environment. 

“There are other ways to be famous,” Cameron Stewart said on the October 5th Tville TV Episode. “There’s other funny stuff you can do. That one girl, Charli D’Amelio, she just dances and she has all kinds of likes!” he elaborates later. “Or sing or something, I don’t know. I know there are plenty of other trends that are funny and will get you famous on TikTok that don’t involve harassing your teachers or stealing stuff from your school.”