Students Are Damaging School Bathrooms For Attention On TikTok

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

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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