TikTok is one of the most well known social media apps in the world. Popular challenges are created from the app, changing from one challenge to another, often based on real life current events or to express creativity. Devious Lick is a challenge where a high school student will steal, also known as a lick, school property such as toilet paper, hand soap dispensers, etc. In other cases, students will commit vandalism, causing destruction to other school property.

Devious Licks originated from TikTok, where user jugg4elias posted a video where they claimed to have taken a box of disposable masks with the caption of “A month into school…devious lick.” While videos with devious licks hashtags have been taken down, videos that do not have hashtags remain up on TikTok.

Solon High School (SHS) Head Custodian Michele Smith, who does not watch any TikTok, was unaware of what Devious Licks challenge was, until her granddaughter then explained it to her. Smith had noticed that items from SHS’s bathrooms, such as soap and toilet paper, have gone missing or have been tampered with.

“Clocks [have also seemed to go missing] off the walls…really not too much other than in the bathrooms, the toilet paper and the soaps,” Smith said.

She also stated that security cameras have been helpful in getting a general idea of who is going in the bathrooms when and what time they went in.

SHS administration has warned students again commiting devious licks and will result in disciplinary action. Some SHS teachers have required that a student signs in and out each time they go to use the restroom in the classroom.

SHS junior Jonathan Loeb describes himself as a formerly frequent user of TikTok and out of the loop when it comes to challenges and trends. When Loeb heard about the Devious Licks, he believed there were better ways to be humorous that do not include making the bathroom more difficult to use.

SHS senior Dominic Carlozzi, who has personally experienced a short-lived moment of fame on TikTok, believes users are participating in the trend in order to be seen as funny and for internet notoriety. Carlozzi believes the Devious Licks videos were originally meant to be funny and cause no harm to anyone but now thinks that people could have taken the challenge a step too far.

“It’s funny if one or two people [do a challenge], but then when you [see] the same [videos] over and over again, like a soap dispenser was cool to start out with but now that everybody is taking soap dispensers, [the trend] has lost its value,” Carlozzi said.

It is expected that like all internet challenges, Devious Licks will die down. TikTok challenges change every day based on an idea a user has or is related to current events, for example, the Dalgona candy challenge from popular Netflix show, ‘Squid Games.’ Internet challenges can be good or bad, however, viewers should view all videos with caution.