Devious Licks Trend

2021Social media challenge / video trenddead

Also known as: Diabolical Lick · Dastardly Lick · Nefarious Lick

Devious Licks was a viral September 2021 TikTok trend where students filmed themselves stealing and vandalizing school items from bathrooms, prompting arrests and TikTok's ban within weeks.

Devious Licks was a viral TikTok trend in September 2021 where middle- and high-school students filmed themselves stealing or vandalizing items from their schools, primarily from bathrooms. The trend started with a single video on September 1 and spread so fast that TikTok banned it within two weeks, but not before it triggered student arrests, school bathroom lockdowns, and a national panic among administrators returning to full in-person classes after the pandemic.

tiktok memesdangerous challenge memesschool banned memesmoral panic memesplatform censorship memes

Overview

A "devious lick" is slang for a particularly audacious theft. In practice, the TikTok trend involved students recording themselves revealing stolen or vandalized school property, usually bathroom fixtures like soap dispensers, mirrors, sinks, and toilet paper holders. The videos followed a consistent format: a student opens a backpack or gestures toward a missing fixture, showing off their "lick" while a sped-up version of Lil B's "Ski Ski BasedGod" plays in the background3. Captions often swapped in synonyms for "devious," calling their hauls "diabolical," "mischievous," or "nefarious" licks3.

The targets ranged from mundane (soap dispensers, paper towel holders) to absurd (urinals, ceiling tiles, interactive whiteboards, microscopes)3. Some students smeared walls with soap or splattered Kool-Aid to fake blood2. The trend hit during a uniquely vulnerable moment: most American students were back in school full-time for the first time in a year and a half thanks to the pandemic1.

The trend traces back to September 1, 2021, when TikTok user jugg4elias posted a video showing a box of disposable masks he claimed to have stolen from school3. The caption read "A month into school... devious lick." The video itself was relatively tame compared to what followed, but the format and phrase caught fire immediately. Within days, copycat videos flooded TikTok, with students escalating the scale and brazenness of their thefts3.

The trend spread during the first weeks of the fall 2021 semester, when COVID-era protocols still had schools on edge. Students were already navigating mask mandates and social distancing rules, and bathroom access was already restricted in many districts for public health reasons1. The devious licks trend made a bad situation worse.

Origin & Background

Platform
TikTok
Creator
jugg4elias
Date
2021

The trend traces back to September 1, 2021, when TikTok user jugg4elias posted a video showing a box of disposable masks he claimed to have stolen from school. The caption read "A month into school... devious lick." The video itself was relatively tame compared to what followed, but the format and phrase caught fire immediately. Within days, copycat videos flooded TikTok, with students escalating the scale and brazenness of their thefts.

The trend spread during the first weeks of the fall 2021 semester, when COVID-era protocols still had schools on edge. Students were already navigating mask mandates and social distancing rules, and bathroom access was already restricted in many districts for public health reasons. The devious licks trend made a bad situation worse.

How It Spread

By mid-September 2021, the trend had gone national. The hashtag "devious" racked up over 235 million views on TikTok before the platform intervened. Schools across the country reported damage and theft at alarming rates.

At Lawrence High School in northeast Kansas, several bathrooms were sealed off after students ripped soap dispensers from walls, then tried to steal the "closed" signs posted on the doors. Student Cuyler Dunn, 17, described the effort as "total destruction" and noted that the general vibe was that "this is just another one of those funny things that high schoolers do," though he admitted it was "starting to get in the way of things".

In Bartow, Florida, a 15-year-old was arrested for tearing a soap dispenser from its fixture and leaving it in a sink. Police chief Bryan Dorman said the student "did it because of this TikTok challenge and he wanted to be cool". Across Polk County, Florida, three students were arrested from two high schools on charges related to the trend.

The Twin Cities in Minnesota saw rapid escalation. Shakopee West Middle School Principal Lori Link wrote to parents that "we have tried several measures to prevent the vandalism and theft, but have been unable to get it to stop. In fact, it is escalating". The school locked student bathrooms during class time and posted staff outside restrooms during lunch to stop anyone from walking off with "a trophy mirror or urinal". Nearby Stillwater Area High School added hallway cameras and boosted staff supervision after soap dispensers were torn from bathroom walls.

At Maple Grove High School in Minnesota, the principal warned parents attending open house not to be alarmed by what looked like blood splatter on restroom walls, explaining it was actually "Kool-Aid or something like that" from another TikTok prank.

In British Columbia, Canada, students ripped out 42 soap dispensers from school bathrooms in a single week. In Boone County, Kentucky, eight students were charged, split evenly between theft and vandalism. The trend was also reported in schools in Australia and Germany.

TikTok removed the original video on September 13 and banned devious licks content entirely on September 15, 2021, citing violations of its community guidelines against illegal activities. The platform said it did not permit content that "promotes or enables criminal activities" and added: "We expect our community to create responsibly, online and IRL". Hashtags and related search terms were redirected to an error message about TikTok's Community Guidelines.

Schools responded with a mix of surveillance, punishment, and parental outreach. Districts warned that students faced suspension, expulsion, restitution payments, and criminal charges. Some administrators also pointed out that self-incriminating videos posted to TikTok could hurt students' future job prospects.

How to Use This Meme

The devious licks format is straightforward, though actually participating would mean committing theft or vandalism:

1

A student steals or damages something from school, typically a bathroom item

2

They film a reveal video showing the stolen item in their backpack, or the damage left behind

3

The video is set to a sped-up version of Lil B's "Ski Ski BasedGod"

4

The caption uses "devious lick" or a synonym like "diabolical lick" or "nefarious lick"

5

The more absurd or large-scale the theft, the more engagement the video got

Cultural Impact

The devious licks trend drew attention from media, law enforcement, and even political operatives.

Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia confirmed "several incidents of property damage" and said "disciplinary action has and will be taken". Multiple police departments across the U.S. issued public warnings, and several students were arrested in states including Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Arizona.

Parent Suzanne Olson of Maple Grove, Minnesota, urged parents to take the trend seriously: "That's where parents get in trouble is not acknowledging that hey, my kid could be capable of this".

The trend also became a political tool. In March 2022, The Washington Post reported that Meta Platforms (Facebook's parent company) had paid Targeted Victory, a Republican-backed consulting firm, to run anti-TikTok lobbying and media campaigns. These efforts included recruiting local reporters to cover trends like devious licks and "Slap a Teacher," writing letters to the editor in the name of concerned parents, and drawing attention to TikTok's potential harm to children, all without disclosing the connection to Meta.

Media commentators were divided. Some condemned the trend outright, while Curbed's Brock Colyar argued that much of the response amounted to a moral panic, given that many of the videos were staged.

Fun Facts

The original devious lick video featured something pretty tame: a box of disposable face masks.

Items stolen during the trend included exit signs, telephones, interactive whiteboards, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, and even turf from sports fields at rival schools.

The "devious" hashtag hit 235 million views on TikTok before it was banned, just 14 days after the trend started.

At least one school in Minnesota had to explain to parents at open house why there was fake blood (Kool-Aid) on the bathroom walls.

The trend was not limited to the U.S. — schools in Canada, Australia, and Germany all reported incidents.

Derivatives & Variations

Angelic Yields

— After the media backlash and TikTok crackdown, some users started a countertrend where they anonymously donated items to their schools, such as bottles of soap, rolls of toilet paper, or small amounts of cash hidden for someone to find[3].

Chromebook Challenge

— A similar school vandalism trend that emerged in May 2025, involving students inserting conductive materials like pencil leads or paper clips into the USB ports of school-issued Chromebooks to cause damage or start small fires[3].

Frequently Asked Questions

Devious Licks Trend

2021Social media challenge / video trenddead

Also known as: Diabolical Lick · Dastardly Lick · Nefarious Lick

Devious Licks was a viral September 2021 TikTok trend where students filmed themselves stealing and vandalizing school items from bathrooms, prompting arrests and TikTok's ban within weeks.

Devious Licks was a viral TikTok trend in September 2021 where middle- and high-school students filmed themselves stealing or vandalizing items from their schools, primarily from bathrooms. The trend started with a single video on September 1 and spread so fast that TikTok banned it within two weeks, but not before it triggered student arrests, school bathroom lockdowns, and a national panic among administrators returning to full in-person classes after the pandemic.

tiktok memes dangerous challenge memes school banned memes moral panic memes platform censorship memes

Overview

A "devious lick" is slang for a particularly audacious theft. In practice, the TikTok trend involved students recording themselves revealing stolen or vandalized school property, usually bathroom fixtures like soap dispensers, mirrors, sinks, and toilet paper holders. The videos followed a consistent format: a student opens a backpack or gestures toward a missing fixture, showing off their "lick" while a sped-up version of Lil B's "Ski Ski BasedGod" plays in the background. Captions often swapped in synonyms for "devious," calling their hauls "diabolical," "mischievous," or "nefarious" licks.

The targets ranged from mundane (soap dispensers, paper towel holders) to absurd (urinals, ceiling tiles, interactive whiteboards, microscopes). Some students smeared walls with soap or splattered Kool-Aid to fake blood. The trend hit during a uniquely vulnerable moment: most American students were back in school full-time for the first time in a year and a half thanks to the pandemic.

The trend traces back to September 1, 2021, when TikTok user jugg4elias posted a video showing a box of disposable masks he claimed to have stolen from school. The caption read "A month into school... devious lick." The video itself was relatively tame compared to what followed, but the format and phrase caught fire immediately. Within days, copycat videos flooded TikTok, with students escalating the scale and brazenness of their thefts.

The trend spread during the first weeks of the fall 2021 semester, when COVID-era protocols still had schools on edge. Students were already navigating mask mandates and social distancing rules, and bathroom access was already restricted in many districts for public health reasons. The devious licks trend made a bad situation worse.

Origin & Background

Platform
TikTok
Creator
jugg4elias
Date
2021

The trend traces back to September 1, 2021, when TikTok user jugg4elias posted a video showing a box of disposable masks he claimed to have stolen from school. The caption read "A month into school... devious lick." The video itself was relatively tame compared to what followed, but the format and phrase caught fire immediately. Within days, copycat videos flooded TikTok, with students escalating the scale and brazenness of their thefts.

The trend spread during the first weeks of the fall 2021 semester, when COVID-era protocols still had schools on edge. Students were already navigating mask mandates and social distancing rules, and bathroom access was already restricted in many districts for public health reasons. The devious licks trend made a bad situation worse.

How It Spread

By mid-September 2021, the trend had gone national. The hashtag "devious" racked up over 235 million views on TikTok before the platform intervened. Schools across the country reported damage and theft at alarming rates.

At Lawrence High School in northeast Kansas, several bathrooms were sealed off after students ripped soap dispensers from walls, then tried to steal the "closed" signs posted on the doors. Student Cuyler Dunn, 17, described the effort as "total destruction" and noted that the general vibe was that "this is just another one of those funny things that high schoolers do," though he admitted it was "starting to get in the way of things".

In Bartow, Florida, a 15-year-old was arrested for tearing a soap dispenser from its fixture and leaving it in a sink. Police chief Bryan Dorman said the student "did it because of this TikTok challenge and he wanted to be cool". Across Polk County, Florida, three students were arrested from two high schools on charges related to the trend.

The Twin Cities in Minnesota saw rapid escalation. Shakopee West Middle School Principal Lori Link wrote to parents that "we have tried several measures to prevent the vandalism and theft, but have been unable to get it to stop. In fact, it is escalating". The school locked student bathrooms during class time and posted staff outside restrooms during lunch to stop anyone from walking off with "a trophy mirror or urinal". Nearby Stillwater Area High School added hallway cameras and boosted staff supervision after soap dispensers were torn from bathroom walls.

At Maple Grove High School in Minnesota, the principal warned parents attending open house not to be alarmed by what looked like blood splatter on restroom walls, explaining it was actually "Kool-Aid or something like that" from another TikTok prank.

In British Columbia, Canada, students ripped out 42 soap dispensers from school bathrooms in a single week. In Boone County, Kentucky, eight students were charged, split evenly between theft and vandalism. The trend was also reported in schools in Australia and Germany.

TikTok removed the original video on September 13 and banned devious licks content entirely on September 15, 2021, citing violations of its community guidelines against illegal activities. The platform said it did not permit content that "promotes or enables criminal activities" and added: "We expect our community to create responsibly, online and IRL". Hashtags and related search terms were redirected to an error message about TikTok's Community Guidelines.

Schools responded with a mix of surveillance, punishment, and parental outreach. Districts warned that students faced suspension, expulsion, restitution payments, and criminal charges. Some administrators also pointed out that self-incriminating videos posted to TikTok could hurt students' future job prospects.

How to Use This Meme

The devious licks format is straightforward, though actually participating would mean committing theft or vandalism:

1

A student steals or damages something from school, typically a bathroom item

2

They film a reveal video showing the stolen item in their backpack, or the damage left behind

3

The video is set to a sped-up version of Lil B's "Ski Ski BasedGod"

4

The caption uses "devious lick" or a synonym like "diabolical lick" or "nefarious lick"

5

The more absurd or large-scale the theft, the more engagement the video got

Cultural Impact

The devious licks trend drew attention from media, law enforcement, and even political operatives.

Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia confirmed "several incidents of property damage" and said "disciplinary action has and will be taken". Multiple police departments across the U.S. issued public warnings, and several students were arrested in states including Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, and Arizona.

Parent Suzanne Olson of Maple Grove, Minnesota, urged parents to take the trend seriously: "That's where parents get in trouble is not acknowledging that hey, my kid could be capable of this".

The trend also became a political tool. In March 2022, The Washington Post reported that Meta Platforms (Facebook's parent company) had paid Targeted Victory, a Republican-backed consulting firm, to run anti-TikTok lobbying and media campaigns. These efforts included recruiting local reporters to cover trends like devious licks and "Slap a Teacher," writing letters to the editor in the name of concerned parents, and drawing attention to TikTok's potential harm to children, all without disclosing the connection to Meta.

Media commentators were divided. Some condemned the trend outright, while Curbed's Brock Colyar argued that much of the response amounted to a moral panic, given that many of the videos were staged.

Fun Facts

The original devious lick video featured something pretty tame: a box of disposable face masks.

Items stolen during the trend included exit signs, telephones, interactive whiteboards, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, and even turf from sports fields at rival schools.

The "devious" hashtag hit 235 million views on TikTok before it was banned, just 14 days after the trend started.

At least one school in Minnesota had to explain to parents at open house why there was fake blood (Kool-Aid) on the bathroom walls.

The trend was not limited to the U.S. — schools in Canada, Australia, and Germany all reported incidents.

Derivatives & Variations

Angelic Yields

— After the media backlash and TikTok crackdown, some users started a countertrend where they anonymously donated items to their schools, such as bottles of soap, rolls of toilet paper, or small amounts of cash hidden for someone to find[3].

Chromebook Challenge

— A similar school vandalism trend that emerged in May 2025, involving students inserting conductive materials like pencil leads or paper clips into the USB ports of school-issued Chromebooks to cause damage or start small fires[3].

Frequently Asked Questions