Karley Cicale, FISM News
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While TikTok may typically be perceived as a relatively innocent platform that spawns dance challenges, a new trend on the app has parents and school employees alike on edge. A new popular challenge called the “Devious Lick” is daring kids to steal from various locations and show off their spoils in a video.
These stolen objects have included things as innocuous as wet floor signs and hand sanitizer dispensers, to more destructive and expensive items including fire alarms, microscopes, security cameras, and fire extinguishers.
The trend began on Sept.1, with user @jugg4elias sharing a video of himself taking a box of disposable masks from his backpack. The caption said, “A month into school absolutely devious lick.” This video gained 300,000 views and triggered a series of copy-cat videos. Five days later, on Sept. 6, TikTok user @dtx.2cent gained over 2.5 million likes with a video showing them removing a hand sanitizer dispenser from their bag.
As the trend continued to grow, kids across the country tried to outdo one another by stealing larger, more high-profile items.
One user claimed to have “won the trend” as he progressively revealed more and more COVID antigen tests that he had supposedly stolen from his school. In the video he claimed that while others were “doing great licks,” he was pulling off an entire “heist.”
With such blatant proof of the identity of every person involved in these steals, the trend has led to several suspensions and possible criminal charges. What kids see as pranks or daring fun is actually considered “petty larceny” if the item is less than $1000. The perpetrators of these crimes could face a $1,000 fine, 3-years’ probation, or a maximum penalty of up to 1-year in jail. These types of charges frequently involve a young person committing a first offense.
On Wednesday, TikTok announced that they are banning all videos in this vein and would remove all videos featuring “devious licks” that they find.
An administrator from a Minneapolis school who was dealing with the issue told CBS 4 Minnesota that he believes that parents talking to their children about the trend is the key, even if they don’t think there child would participate:
That’s where parents get in trouble is not acknowledging that hey, my kid could be capable of this.