What I think about this “devious lick” trend is that it’s a lame, dumb, wasteful, and straight-up a vandalism trend. I don’t know if people think it will make them suddenly cool and everyone will hold them in high regard or make them the funniest person alive, but in my mind it’s just lame and unoriginal.

When I first installed TikTok, I was so mesmerized by all the ideas on the table. Well, nowadays it’s littered with trend followers. Especially the copy-paste ones that never add anything to differentiate them from the rest. I especially find this pattern with the devious lick trend. You’ll always see the Missing wet floor sign here and then a missing soap dispenser there.

It’s all the same at this point. Those videos only got popular and showered with likes because of the shock value of it at the time. I thought it would be some trend on TikTok that would only happen in other schools so it was not my problem. But then it happened to Akins, oh did it happen to Akins. People started stealing small various items like staplers, soap dispensers, and other things to that degree. Then students started to steal much bigger items like whole bathroom stall doors.

As I see it, it’s a huge waste of money. School budgets aren’t really known to be plentiful. So having things stolen left and right can cause unfavorable effects. Having to replace things like soap dispensers, toilet paper rolls, and wet floor signs can deflate and leave almost nothing to the school’s budget.

If the school chooses not to replace these items, it can be even worse. Students will not be able to use the restrooms, and it would be unsanitary to be in the restrooms since all the toilet paper and hand soap have been stolen.

This trend is simply annoying and inconvenient for students like me who just want to use the restroom. I don’t want to walk into a bathroom and see that all the stalls have been locked with trash bags. Then I go to the sink to wash my hands because I touch the stall doors to see if they were open.

Personally, I don’t want some weird bathroom diseases, so I wash my hands with only a lot of water and ambition. Then I have to go back to class still needing to use the restroom, still annoyed all throughout the day because I have to use the bathroom and this trend won’t let me do that. It also can be dangerous, because the wet floor signs are missing, people are more likely to slip and hurt themselves. The reason people had put those signs, is to warn others that the floor is wet to stop people from slipping, not so you can take them. Having these items be replaced constantly just can’t happen.

If the school pours all their budget into replacing all the items stolen from this dumb trend, then they will not have money to use on actual school supplies for the very people who participated in the devious lick trend.

So I have to think, Is it all worth it? So they stole a soap dispenser, now what? It would just chill in the corner of their room, collecting dust for a month or two until they throw it out. That’s why I find this trend so dumb and wasteful. It has people stealing things that they could live their lives having not stolen, but they choose to participate in this vandalism trend. Is this their trophy or souvenir for that short amount of time? That’s why the devious lick trend has to come to an end.