Devious lick

A devious lick^[a] (also known as a diabolical lick,^[4] dastardly lick, or nefarious lick,^[5] amongst other names) was a challenge in which North American middle school and high school students posted videos of themselves stealing, vandalizing, or showing off one or more items they stole in their school, typically from a bathroom (or, in some cases, merely pretending to have done so).^[6]^[7] The trend went viral on TikTok in 2021 and has resulted in the arrests of many students ^[8]^[6]^[9]^[10] as well as various warnings being issued by police departments. It also allegedly spread to some schools in Latin America, England, Germany, Australia and Latvia.^[11]^[12]^[13]

History

The trend originated on September 11, 2021, after the TikTok user jugg4elias posted a video showing a box of disposable masks they claimed to have stolen from school, with the caption "A month into school... devious lick". Similar videos with the term "devious lick" soon flooded the platform, with students stealing items from bathrooms, such as soap and paper towel dispensers, toilet paper roll shields, urinals, sinks, mirrors, and floor and ceiling tiles. Eventually, students allegedly began stealing items outside of the bathrooms, including exit signs, telephones, smart boards, and microscopes. The videos were typically accompanied by a sped-up version of Lil B's "Ski Ski BasedGod". The videos' captions often modify the name of the trend with synonymous adjectives, such as "mischievous" or "diabolical licks," etc.

Various schools began taking action against the trend, warning students of serious consequences and arrests. Some schools in New Brunswick had reported their toilets being sprayed with red food coloring^[14] and other forms of vandalism. In British Columbia, 42 soap dispensers^[15] were ripped out from school bathrooms within the span of one week. In Huron County, Ontario, a bathroom had all of its urinals^[16] and toilets clogged with enormous amounts of paper towels, while other toilet paper was ripped out and thrown to the ground. Another video also showed a student stealing a classmate's pants while the latter was sitting in a bathroom stall.

More serious vandalism attributed to the trend involved broken mirrors and light fixtures.^[5]^[2]^[7] In Polk County, Florida, three students were arrested from two high schools, as well as one 15-year-old who was arrested for damaging and stealing soap dispensers at Bartow High School.^[8]^[6] In Boone County, Kentucky, eight students were charged over the trend, with four receiving theft and four receiving vandalism charges.^[9] In Stafford County, Virginia, a student from Stafford Senior High School was charged for vandalizing a park bathroom near the school. In Mohave County, Arizona, a 15-year-old was arrested for stealing a school toilet paper dispenser.^[10]

In May and June of 2022, Cornell University, an Ivy League institution, had all the letters of their sign spelling "Cornell University" within the College Town Bridge stolen, with progress of the crime and missing letters posted on Instagram.^[17]^[18]

Reactions

Platform response

The original devious lick video was removed on September 13, and TikTok subsequently began removing videos featuring the trend. It was banned by TikTok on September 15 for violating its community guidelines against illegal activities, by which time the "devious" hashtag had over 235 million views. The hashtag and related search results were redirected to an error message about TikTok's Community Guidelines.^[6]^[1]

Public response and countertrend

In addition to schools and the police, various media commentators condemned the trend.^[19]

Journalist Brock Colyar of Curbed demonstrated that three separate videos of supposed "devious licks" were, in fact, all staged, with one video of a student supposedly stealing a microscope actually being of a microscope the student owned at home, and critiqued the media and political response as a moral panic.^[20]

After the media backlash and crackdown on devious licks, some TikTok users began participating in a countertrend known as "angelic yields", where users anonymously donated items to their schools, such as bottles of soap and rolls of toilet paper, typically to replace whatever had been stolen during a devious lick, or to hide a gift for someone to find, often in the form of a small amount of cash.^[21]^[22]^[23]

Amplification by Targeted Victory

In March 2022, the Washington Post reported that Facebook's owner Meta Platforms paid Targeted Victory—a consulting firm backed by supporters of the U.S. Republican Party—to coordinate lobbying and media campaigns against TikTok, without disclosing any connection linking back to Meta.^[24]^[25] Its efforts included recruiting local reporters to put out stories, writing letters and opinion pieces in the name of concerned parents, and drawing attention to trends such as "devious licks" and "Slap a Teacher" that actually originated on Facebook. Spokespersons of Targeted Victory and Meta defended their firm's roles.^[24]