TikTok: The Mother Of All Bad Viral Trends

[Arvenia]

Lately, we have seen a viral trend on TikTok called "Devious Licks" (also known as "Diabolical Licks" and "Dastardly Licks"), in which students post videos of themselves stealing, damaging or showing off items taken from school, mostly in bathrooms. It began on September 1, 2021, when 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". Soon after, similar videos, all containing the phrase "devious lick", began flooding TikTok. Those videos shows students stealing many items such as soap dispensers, paper towel expensers, toilet paper roll shields, exit signs, telephones, sinks, urinals, floor tiles, smart boards, microscopes and even toilets. All of the videos featured a sped-up version of "Ski Ski BasedGod", a song by American rapper Lil B. Many schools began taking action against the trend, usually by warning students of suspensions and potential arrests. There were even more serious vandalism attributed to the trend, which involved broken mirrors and light fixtures, as reported in the North East Independent School District. In Polk County, Florida, three students were arrested from two high schools, as well as a 15-year old student who was arrested for damaging and stealing soap dispensers at Bartow High School. In Boone County, Kentucky, eight students were charged over the trend, four receiving theft and four receiving vandalism charges. As what I have heard from some YouTube video, there was even a case where two students kidnapped their principal. Yeah, even people could end up getting treated like "devious licks".

According to Urban Dictionary, the word "lick" refers to as a successful theft that turns out to be "an acceptable, impressive and rewarding payday."

Eventually, as things got more worse, TikTok began to take action against the trend by removing videos relating to it, which led to the first video being removed on September 13. TikTok then banned the trend on September 15 for violating its community guidelines against illegal activities. At the time of the ban, #devious had amased 235 million views. Related hashtags were redirected to said community guidelines.

Here are some news articles on this trend:

• https://www.nj.com/news/2021/09/what-is-the-devious-lick-tiktok-trend-what-does-it-mean-heres-what-to-know.html
• https://www.insider.com/devious-lick-tiktok-meaning-stealing-school-equipment-meme-2021-9
• https://thetab.com/uk/2021/09/16/devious-lick-tiktok-223041
• https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/florida-teen-arrested-tiktok-school-devious-licks
• https://people.com/human-interest/what-to-know-about-devious-lick-tiktok-challenge/
• https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/18/health/devious-licks-tiktok-challenge-wellness/index.html
• https://eu.cincinnati.com/story/news/crime/2021/09/17/tiktok-devious-licks-trend-arrests-charges-boone-county-school/8364148002/

Besides this, there were other trends on TikTok such as the Milk Crate Challenge (where people try to climb up and down a podium-like set of milk crates without injuring themselves), the Benadryl Challenge (which involves the deliberate consumption, excessive use and overdose of the antihistamine medicine diphenhydramine), the Cha Cha Slide Challenge (where teenagers drive recklessly to the rhythm of a song that was released 20 years ago by DJ Casper), the Skull Breaker Challenge, the Tooth Filing Challenge, the Corn Cob Challenge, the Face Wax Challenge, the Frozen Honey Challenge, the Silhouette Challenge and the "Coronavirus Challenge" (which involves licking stuff). There was even a trend where TikTokers pretended to be the victims of the Holocaust, which is very offensive and insulting to the real victims (and survivors) of the Holocaust. So it is a sad thing that TikTok is literally the mother of all bad viral trends right now.

Here is a New York Post article about those trends (if you want more information about them).

As I said, this thread is a general discussion about questionable trends going viral on TikTok and why people began to despise TikTok due to said trends (besides alleged Chinese government ownership). Even though most of these trends either had ended or were subsequently banned, they were still worth sparking discussion about them.

NSG, what is your opinion on TikTok and the bad trends that went viral there?

[Canada CA]

It's objectively funny, but its also inconsiderate, stupid, immoral and degenerate.

If teachers still gave students a slap round the head when they got caught doing this, maybe it wouldn't happen.

[Aerlanica]

I really need to lower my standards of humanity; I have no faith in us as a species.

[Wapistan]

I don't even get the point of all those "Devious Licks" that were on Tiktok some time ago. Its literally just vandalising and stealing from schools. This hivemind of stupidity has caused these teens to try and one up each other in exchange for maybe a couple thousand views at most. Doesn't help that in some of these Tiktoks that the student is literally showing their face, which will probably guarantee them a knock on the door from the police if the school finds out.

My school has been affected hard. Someone ran off with the soap dispenser last week, and while i don't know if this was related to Devious Licks, the school did a 'Go fuck yourself' to all the students and banned use of toilets outright unless you got a pass for medical reasons. What a world we live in.

[Honourbound]

Inconsiderate as anything. TikTok is brooding the environment for these sorts of things to thrive, and so far - it's been pretty lax on trying to prevent things like this. TikTok isn't really at fault for what their userbase is doing, but they are responsible for letting these trends spread - which has quite obviously cost places thousands of dollars.

[Kingdom of the Indus]

According to Urban Dictionary, the word "lick" refers to as a successful theft that turns out to be "an acceptable, impressive and rewarding payday."

Do these kids think stealing a toilet is supposed to make you a millionaire?

Besides this, there were other trends on TikTok such as the Milk Crate Challenge (where people try to climb up and down a podium-like set of milk crates without injuring themselves), the Benadryl Challenge (which involves the deliberate consumption, excessive use and overdose of the antihistamine medicine diphenhydramine), the Cha Cha Slide Challenge (where teenagers drive recklessly to the rhythm of a song that was released 20 years ago by DJ Casper), the Skull Breaker Challenge, the Tooth Filing Challenge, the Corn Cob Challenge, the Face Wax Challenge, the Frozen Honey Challenge, the Silhouette Challenge and the "Coronavirus Challenge" (which involves licking stuff).

Has anyone prepared a full list of all the awful TikTok trends? I'd love to see it, even though I imagine it would be extremely long.

There was even a trend where TikTokers pretended to be the victims of the Holocaust

W H A T

Edit: Found an article about the "Holocaust Challenge" (Jesus Christ).

[Unified Communist Councils]

So basically kids do dumb shit on social media, at least in TikTok they're willing to show themselves doing it on video. The issue is that nobody is reporting these idiots to the school administration, they're being pretty open about it and the incriminating evidence is literally captured on film.

[Arvenia]

I don't even get the point of all those "Devious Licks" that were on Tiktok some time ago. Its literally just vandalising and stealing from schools. This hivemind of stupidity has caused these teens to try and one up each other in exchange for maybe a couple thousand views at most. Doesn't help that in some of these Tiktoks that the student is literally showing their face, which will probably guarantee them a knock on the door from the police if the school finds out.

My school has been affected hard. Someone ran off with the soap dispenser last week, and while i don't know if this was related to Devious Licks, the school did a 'Go fuck yourself' to all the students and banned use of toilets outright unless you got a pass for medical reasons. What a world we live in.

That's really bad. There was even a TikTok (that I saw in a compilation video on YouTube) where a school had all trash cans chained to walls (maybe those trash cans were also treated like "devious licks"), although the TikTok only showed one chained trash can. No joke.

PS: Skip to 6:25 to see that TikTok.

[Elejamie]

Don't forget "beaning", where you dump baked beans all over someone's car, driveway or doorstep. That apparently got turned into a thing over here, to the point where the police suggested that shops don't sell tins of baked beans to kids. I don't know if the "devious lick" challenge took off over here as I haven't really seen any news reports about it and I graduated secondary school over ten years ago so I can't check for myself.

Either way, this is pretty much a big reason why I hate TikTok. I mean, sure some of it is probably alright but as far as I know it's a wretched hive of dumb challenges (that are cringeworthy at best and borderline sociopathic at worse), forced attempts at humour and occasionally stolen content (I remember a couple of times when I was sent a video on Discord of a still image taken from somewhere with a moving background and/or music added to it). Sure doing stupid things "for the clout" isn't something that's completely new, Herostratus burnt down the Temple of Artemis in 356BC just to make his name known, but the internet's really ramped that sort of thing up and TikTok seems to be a hub for it, much to the dismay of any content creators on there who put out quality stuff.

Do I suggest banning it? No, that wouldn't fix anything and the kids would probably find some other site to be dumb on. Do I suggest bringing back Vine? Kind of, at least the seven second time limit would help filter out some of the dumber stuff. I'm sure there's a way to blame the parents here somewhere for not teaching their kids that stealing is wrong. Ultimately the lesson that these people should be taught is that, while doing stuff like this may seem good in the short run because of that rush that fame brings you, there is the possibility that you would end up ruining your future, either by being unable to adapt to the inevitable fade into irrelevance thanks to an eternally changing market, getting in trouble with the law or the school should you get caught and thus affect any potential job prospects or by you and your video being made fun of in a "TikTok cringe" compilation video.

[New Imperium of Mankind]

Next time on Tiktok Trends!
Murder your friends for Tiktok likes and receive a free room in jail.

Seriously though, it's just all really dumb stuff.

[Esternial]

Kids have been doing stupid shit since times inmemoriam. Biggest difference is that one of those stupid things is sharing those stupid things on social media.

Before TikTok kids were competing for clout in their own high school e.g. by nicking a few knick-knacks from the science lab. For lots of teenagers nowadays, the audience has gotten a lot bigger than their own school.

This goes beyond teenagers, though. Increased interconnectivity has enhanced a lot of social behaviors. Clout-chasing and circle-jerking are two examples, but increased collaboration are also consequences of the same system.

Kids doing more stupid shit than in the past and me seeing it more often is a price I am willing to pay for the existence of Github and StackOverflow.

[JAPANBLOX]

OOF
OOF
OOF
OOF

[J o J]

This is a prime example of societal degeneration. Left unsupervised and unchecked online, children are easily corrupted and develop bad behavior habits. Our youth are so brainwashed and obsessed with clout that they think stealing things like toilets, urinals, used soap dispensers, and fire alarms is somehow clout worthy and productive. All they have done is take home smelly biohazards which cannot be sold, and inconvenience the rest of the school. They're committing straight up vandalism and theft, which are crimes, and yet thousands on TikTok support this behavior. This goes to show how abominable social media is becoming.

It's really sad to see schools needing bathroom chaperones and scheduled bathroom field trips because high school students can't behave while using the bathroom. To those of you across the world who thought the potential of societal degradation and it's consequences were a myth, I hope you're happy with the results.

[Esternial]

This is a prime example of societal degeneration. Left unsupervised and unchecked online, children are easily corrupted and develop bad behavior habits. Our youth are so brainwashed and obsessed with clout that they think stealing things like toilets, urinals, used soap dispensers, and fire alarms is somehow clout worthy and productive. All they have done is take home smelly biohazards which cannot be sold, and inconvenience the rest of the school. They're committing straight up vandalism and theft, which are crimes, and yet thousands on TikTok support this behavior. This goes to show how abominable social media is becoming.

It's really sad to see schools needing bathroom chaperones and scheduled bathroom field trips because high school students can't behave while using the bathroom. To those of you across the world who thought the potential of societal and social degradation, and it's consequences, were a myth; I hope you're happy with the results.

Every generation has complained about the one before it. Before it were the Boomers dunking on Millenials and now that they'ree grown up and working jobs the Millenials are the ones grunting about "them darn kids" and their lawns.

My advice would be to just get over it and deal with the problem as it presents itself today, rather than going on a rant about how our society is going down the shitter like generational clockwork.

Stuff changes, for the better and the worse. Altogether we're moving up as a society.

[Outer Sparta]

Every time some cringe or weird Tik Tok trend comes up and you think it can't get any worse, oh it'll definitely get worse.

[Cosmic79]

Ignore that every generation has been doing stupid crap like this in one way or other.

Don't ask where their parents were all these years or why they didn't teach them not to behave badly.

Don't ask why the educational system has done nothing to make teenagers more upstanding and lawful individuals.

Mindlessly blame Facebook/Twitter/TikTok/whatever social media website spooks you, to be like everyone else! Advocate for internet based bans, restrictions and regulations that will totally not be abused. This will definitely solve all teen-related problems!

[Imperial States of Duotona]

My devious lick would be the servers of TikTok which I would proceed to dump into the sea so no thief gets attention from this again. No servers means no attention for these idiots, therefore they STOP STEALING!

[Deblar]

I think this sums it up perfectly

[Grave_n_idle]

This is a prime example of societal degeneration.

No, It isn't.

It's a prime example of something that has always happened. It just hits a bigger audience, now.

Remember all those kids going and getting washed down storm drains because the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live in a sewer?

[Tremulo]

Seen this kind of thing all the time. It's the old Tide Pod challenge all over again. Kids are stupid, and will harm themselves in all manner of ways for nothing more than petty attention...

[Imperial States of Duotona]

Ignore that every generation has been doing stupid crap like this in one way or other.

Don't ask where their parents were all these years or why they didn't teach them not to behave badly.

Don't ask why the educational system has done nothing to make teenagers more upstanding and lawful individuals.

Mindlessly blame Facebook/Twitter/TikTok/whatever social media website spooks you, to be like everyone else! Advocate for internet based bans, restrictions and regulations that will totally not be abused. This will definitely solve all teen-related problems!

Whilst I do believe that social media isn't the root cause of the problem, it is having a hand in it. With an increased viewing, especially on such a popular app like tiktok, people are willing to do dangerous stuff to make more of an audience.
Don't ban social media. Monitor it. Not just the moderators of the app, but parents with kids known to do this.

[Grave_n_idle]

So basically kids do dumb shit on social media, at least in TikTok they're willing to show themselves doing it on video. The issue is that nobody is reporting these idiots to the school administration, they're being pretty open about it and the incriminating evidence is literally captured on film.

This.

The problem here isn't a particular social media platform - it's the fact that there hasn't been a crackdown on the criminal action.

[Arvenia]

Here are some Devious Lick compilation videos:

• Compilation 1
• Compilation 2
• Compilation 3
• Compilation 4

[Esternial]

Here are some Devious Lick compilation videos:

• Compilation 1
• Compilation 2
• Compilation 3
• Compilation 4

One can only hope that getting arrested teaches them a life lesson.

[Wapistan]

Here are some Devious Lick compilation videos:

• Compilation 1
• Compilation 2
• Compilation 3
• Compilation 4

One can only hope that getting arrested teaches them a life lesson.

Sadly most schools probably wont do anything other than call in their parents on how bad their behaviour has been. Things like these should be taken as seriously as if someone that isn't a student did it.