Teachers are cracking down on TikTok’s Devious Lick trend with interesting tactics

Georgina Smith
A person stands with a bag next to the TikTok logo

Videos are going viral of schools pleading with students to not participate in the ‘Devious Lick’ trend on TikTok, with some even offering cash rewards to people who report fellow students.

TikTok is home to some of the most bizarre trends on the internet, and the latest one to sweep the platform seems to have been causing a fair amount of trouble.

The ‘Devious Lick,’ as it is often referred to, involves students taking the weirdest items they possibly can from their school. This has involved things like hand sanitizer dispensers, printers, and even ceiling tiles.

Participants then show off their ‘lick’ on TikTok in videos that can get thousands of likes and views.

However, on September 15, TikTok officially denounced the trend, and they removed the hashtag altogether, adding: “We’re removing content and redirecting hashtags & search results to our Community Guidelines to discourage such behavior.”

They also implored students to “please be kind to your schools & teachers.”

In new videos, students have been revealing just how frustrated schools and teachers are getting, and they’re going to great lengths to stop people from participating and tracking down the people that have.

In a video posted to Twitter with almost 90,000 likes, someone can be heard over the tannoy asking students to bring him any videos of a specific student who participated in the trend, saying he will give people $200 for doing so.

https://twitter.com/leafbii/status/1438951647301021698

Another viral TikTok video with nearly 1,000,000 likes appears to show a principal revealing that students might end up in court if they continue to participate in the trend.

Click here if TikTok doesn’t load

While some say that they think the trend is funny, others have expressed frustration at the measures that are being taken in schools in order to combat it.