Students Are Damaging School Bathrooms For Attention On TikTok

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/17/1038378816/students-are-damaging-school-
bathrooms-for-attention-on-tiktok

Students are destroying or stealing items at their schools, often in the 
school bathrooms, for what school administrators and police are blaming on 
a TikTok trend.

Reports have emerged from across the country: a stolen soap dispenser and 
damaged sink in Florida; intentionally clogged toilets and mirrors and 
soap dispensers ripped from walls in California; destruction and red dye 
staining the bathrooms and a teacher's belongings stolen in Arkansas; 
ceiling tiles and partitions destroyed in Tennessee.

Aubrey Chancellor, the executive director of communications for the North 
East Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, says schools there 
have experienced similar damage.

"It's certainly very, very frustrating for administrators, for custodians, 
teachers, other students, maintenance staff," she tells Weekend Edition. 
"When this type of thing happens, not only do the custodians and the 
maintenance workers have to stop whatever they actually should be doing. 
They have to then come and clean up and that sort of thing. It's also 
frustrating for the students because those restrooms then need to be shut 
down."

Students have already faced school disciplinary measures and criminal 
charges.

Administrators and law enforcement are blaming the damage on a TikTok 
trend involving the hashtag "deviouslick" or "deviouslicks." Students are 
said to be destroying or stealing school property for attention on social 
media.

A "lick" is now a slang for theft.

TikTok says it is removing content with the hashtag and redirecting the 
search results to its community standards. "We expect our community to 
stay safe and create responsibly, and we do not allow content that 
promotes or enables criminal activities," a TikTok spokesperson said in a 
statement.

Even so, NPR was easily able to find school vandalism videos by making 
small changes to the lettering. One video showed someone with a bottle of 
red liquid spraying it all over a toilet and wall in a bathroom stall.

Jacqueline Nesi, an assistant professor at Brown University who studies 
adolescents and social media, says teenagers are more likely than others 
to engage in risky behaviors for social approval.

"The goal is not to have the thing that you've stolen from the school. I 
think the goal is really to have what seems like approval of your peers 
online, and that's a really powerful incentive for teens," she tells 
Weekend Edition.

She says this is an example of a fad that tends to come and go quickly.

Schools and police urged parents to talk to their teenagers about the 
criminal charges they could face for participating, including a possible 
felony.

"Kids, just know that if you get caught doing the challenge, your phone 
will probably be seized as evidence and it may take a long time to get it 
returned, if ever. If you are in schools or at sporting events, know we 
will be keeping an extra eye out for this," the West Des Moines Police 
Department in Iowa wrote.

"So please, don't. Just. Don't."

Emma Peaslee contributed reporting.


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