Warn Your Kids About Ridiculous, Outlandish “Devious Licks” TikTok Trend
Over the weekend a friend of mine showed me a letter from a school district in Texas warning parents about a new viral TikTok trend called "Devious licks". The basic premise of this ridiculous viral trend is to film yourself destroying school property for a TikTok video. Now, how outlandishly stupid is this?
I am all about viewing a funny TikTok video, but parents need to make sure that they have made their children understand that filming yourself destroying school property can get them into serious trouble.
So, what is all of this like? Here's a video from YouTube:
I think what bothers me so much about this situation is that when I was a kid I wouldn't have dreamed of doing something like this, but today, "going viral" seems to be much more common than common sense!
I have reached out to the Lafayette Parish School District for an official comment, and I am waiting on that response. Our news partners at KATC report that on Friday a recording from Southside High School Principal Catherine Cassidy went out to parents and students letting them know that the school will respond with "zero tolerance" to any incident like this.
Here are some more examples of what kids are doing:
NPR has reported that some schools are even closing bathrooms to prevent middle and high school students from participating in this dumb "challenge". This trend has even gotten the attention of people on Capitol Hill according to The Hill. Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote this to Tik Tok's chief executive Shou Zi Chew which was printed in The Hill,
You have a responsibility to delete videos, ban users, and restrict hashtags that glorify property damage and threats to school safety to prevent this destructive behavior from spreading.
And of course, it's getting attention from people on Capitol Hill, and it should bother everyone. Why wouldn't it? We are taxpayers, and these kids think it's funny to video themselves tearing toilets out of bathrooms? Granted, it's not all kids that are doing this, but they are enough people worried in Lafayette that Cassidy sent out that message.
Here is more from this same "challenge":
I am so old now that I remember getting excited as a kid that everyone in the neighborhood was going to play "kick the can". How far have we fallen? What's wrong with some of these kids, and is it us, in the media that is partly to blame?
Lafayette Parish School Board member Justin Centanni says,
Destruction of school property is never okay. I hope our parents proactively help their children avoid the serious consequences that will come from a completely unnecessary stunt.
TikTok says they are banning this kind of video, but how long is it going to be before a kid decides to do this and put it on another social media platform?
In the recording to parents at Southside High School, the principal says they will pursue criminal damages if something like this happens. And that's not some meager threat. When I spoke to Senior Corporal Bridgette Dugas with the Lafayette Police Department, she had the following to say,
Charges would be Simple Criminal Damage to Property, and depending on the value of the property destroyed that would determine penalties such as fines and jail time. Also, restitution can be granted for the cost, so ultimately parent would be paying for the damage.
When I contacted the Lafayette Parish School System today spokeswoman Allison Dickerson had the following to say,
To my knowledge, we have not had any issues on our campuses. In order to be proactive and raise awareness, we have been communicating with our students and parents regarding this national trend.
I am very happy to hear that, and I hope things stay that way.
This situation reminds me of a story I reported on back in July when some kids went into a school and totally destroyed a bunch of the property in the school. They didn't video the incident, but it's always the taxpayers who end up paying in the end.