The Devious Lick Trend is Getting out of Control

By Ellicia Swedish, Staff Contributor

The viral “Devious Lick” TikTok trend is hitting upstate New York. If you don’t know what this trend is, it’s students stealing and vandalizing their schools. Some people record and post their criminal activity to TikTok for views.

NYSCOSS (council of school superintendent) is working with Attorney General Letitia James to reach out to TikTok to put an end to this trend. Schools like Shendohowa, Mohonsan, Shaker, Tamarac and Glens Falls are just some of the many schools that have been affected by this Trend. Colleges like Binghamton University, are also being hit. Lila Bourkarim from Binghamton University says, “We had people taking couches/tables from lunges, covid sanitization signs for decorations, wet floor/cautions signs, street signs and even random signs on the walls. RAs have had to send out messages about putting things back or else they would be punished because they have camera footage of the places where things were taken.”

Many high schoolers are over this trend. At Shaker High school they are shutting down the bathrooms and doubling the hall monitors. This is inconvenient for some students. “At Catholic Central High School in Troy the bathroom in the gym lobby is constantly missing toilet paper, the toilets are often clogged and it smells terrible.” At South Colonie, a student said “In the boys’ bathroom they took a trash can and threw it into the bathroom stalls and unscrewed the toilet screws. There’s bathroom watch dudes that sit outside the bathrooms. They watch who goes in and who comes out.” Many innocent students who are not involved in the destruction of their school property find it annoying that they have to suffer the consequences of someone else’s actions. 

I asked students from HVCC and outside what their thoughts were. Many people on campus stated something along the lines of “I thought it was funny at first but now it’s just overdone and cringy.” Elizabeth Erno; a Nursing Student at HVCC said, “It was never funny to begin with.” Sarah Valenti from CCHS says, “It’s horrible, especially when people are stealing things teachers paid for with their own money.” One student believes “It’s almost as if they’re trying to one-up each other by committing more absurd licks.” A sophomore student from Cohoes High School states, “I don’t think TikTok should be responsible for people’s actions.” A freshman student from UAlbany said something similar, “In my opinion, I don’t think it should be banned. It is an issue of the parents and bad parenting. The parents shouldn’t allow this to happen because they’ll do this regardless of the TikTok trend, the root issue is they have no respect for property or other people.” 

I conducted a poll on my Instagram account. I asked, “Has your school been hit with any devious licks?” 68% said yes and 32% said no. 43 kids said their schools have been hit with devious licks. Multiple people who voted were either in high school or college.