TikTok, the world’s most downloaded app in 2020 according to BBC news, has taken the world by storm over the past few years. Many trends have come from the app, such as whipped coffee or the “Savage” dance, but not all of them are necessarily good.
One of these not-so great trends is the “devious lick” movement. In the original video, the creator shows a box of disposable masks they allegedly stole from their school with the caption: “A month into school… devious lick.” Numerous students in middle and high schools across the world have stolen from their school or committed various acts of vandalism to the institutions as an attempt to participate in this trend.
Stoughton High School is not immune to the effects of TikTok fads.
“From the beginning of the year on we’ve had some vandalism, in which we’ve had big towel dispensers ripped off [the walls], we’ve had toilets and urinals being plugged, we’ve had Gatorade and Kool-Aid thrown on the walls […] we had to get some control over that,” Mike Kruse, principal of Stoughton high school, says about the situation.
A week into the start of school, the janitorial and administrative staff began to notice destruction and defacement of school property, particularly in the boys bathrooms. Suspecting that this was inspired by the “devious lick” trend, administration shut down two out of three of the functioning mens restrooms, only opening them for use during passing periods.
Kruse decided to close two of the three bathrooms about a week after the first incident occurred, and says, “Administratively, the decision had to be mine.”
The boys bathrooms remained closed for almost three weeks, until the pattern of wreckage began to die down and Kruse determined it safe to reopen the bathrooms.
“There have been some issues in the counseling bathroom, but [they were] very minor compared to what we were dealing with. Hopefully, we’re all done with the game, and we can be back to normal,” Kruse says.
Kruse shared he would opt to take the same approach if the damage became a recurring event. Numerous middle and high schools around the country have been using a similar tactic, with hundreds of institutions closing most or all of their bathrooms in an attempt to slow the vandalism down and return to a normal school year.
“I don’t know what else to do, and I wish I wouldn’t have to make these decisions… Hopefully, people can just go back to doing what they need to do, and go to school. That would be awesome,” Kruse says.