The ‘Devious Licks’ TikTok Trend Is Getting Teens Arrested

Move over, milk crate problem, there’s a more moderen, stupider option to break your life.

One week after TikTok confirmed that it had blocked content material and hashtags and eliminated searches associated to “devious licks”—the rising development that encourages college students to swipe mundane objects from their faculties, together with hearth extinguishers, cleaning soap dispensers, and movie projectors—USA Today reported that police throughout the U.S. have begun arresting and charging college students accused of collaborating within the related acts of vandalism and theft.

In Kentucky’s Boone County, the place the development has apparently been notably pernicious, the sheriff’s workplace introduced Friday that eight juveniles from a smattering of faculties throughout the district had been hit with expenses associated to the development, together with 4 who obtained vandalism expenses and one other 4 who had been charged with theft.

The legal expenses prompted a proper response from the Boone County Schools District, which wrote in a letter to folks that it deliberate to undertake a zero-tolerance coverage going ahead to take care of college students who choose to swipe or injury faculty property.

“This behavior will not be tolerated and will be dealt with accordingly. Destruction of school property will result in school discipline being applied to the fullest extent, including paying restitution for property that has been damaged or destroyed and possibly being criminally charged by our local police or sheriff’s department,” the district wrote.

In neighboring Ohio, the Oak Hills Local School District was additionally compelled to ship out a letter to folks final week warning that college students can be beneficial for legal expenses in the event that they had been caught doing any devious licking.

“Students in several of our buildings have been caught committing these thefts and acts of vandalism and are being disciplined,” the district wrote. “In addition to school consequences, students are subject to criminal charges and will be required to pay restitution for any damages incurred.”

Over in central Florida, CBS Tampa Bay reported that Alicia Manautou, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, lately issued an announcement to say that, “If you’re in Polk County and you choose to participate in this particular TikTok challenge, this ‘Devious Lick Challenge,’ you’re also choosing to be arrested.”

While older adults at all times appear keen to attract up some drained thesis about social media and its addling results on the delicate minds of “the youth,” the funniest factor about platforms like TikTok is that they roughly simply amplify youngsters behaving the identical means youngsters have at all times behaved because the daybreak of time. As anybody who had that one dumb good friend in faculty who used to carry the “employees must wash hands” indicators from McDonald’s bogs or plates from the eating corridor can attest to, younger folks simply like to steal and be dumb, and so they find it irresistible much more after they can brag about it to their associates.

But when you begin messing with the taxpayer’s hard-earned greenback, you’re going to begin ruffling some feathers, which is outwardly precisely what these teenagers have finished. The devious lickage has apparently wound its option to the halls of Congress, the place Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs a Senate shopper safety subcommittee, referred to as upon TikTok in a Tuesday press launch to do extra to safeguard public institutions from the dreaded “bathroom challenge.”

“You have a responsibility to delete videos, ban users, and restrict hashtags that glorify property damage and threats to school safety to prevent this destructive behavior from spreading,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. “While TikTok has taken steps to remove these videos, these actions were too little, too late and do not make up for the damage to schools across the country.”