Starting in the beginning of September, students have been vandalizing the school bathrooms for a TikTok trend known as ‘“Devious Licks.”

It first started off with TikTok user jugg4elias stealing a box of masks from school. Since then, it’s just gotten worse and worse. Students at Norrix decided to hop onto the trend as well: for fame, likes or just the thrill they get from destroying things. 

According to Principal Christopher Aguinaga, the type of things being destroyed are countless: mainly soap dispensers and paper towel dispensers have been ripped out, but some other things that happened were toilet stalls getting tee-peeded, arson, graffiti, and even damage to the actual plumbing. 

This has affected students exponentially, especially during the pandemic. If a student can’t wash their hands, they might contract a disease. 

“There’s no real purpose to destroying them,” senior Darren Sperti said. “They’re all public and we’ll all need to use them at one point.” 

When the bathrooms get vandalized, for one, it costs the school money to repair everything that was destroyed, which can cost a lot in some cases; and two, they become inaccessible to the students who want to use them. 

This TikTok trend isn’t just happening in Loy Norrix though, it’s happening in schools across the nation. 

“It shows a downside of social media,” Principal Christopher Aguinaga said. “That it can spread something destructive across the entire country.” 

Aguinaga has been cracking down on students who partake in this trend as well as trying to stop this trend in general. Some things he’s been doing are suspending students, fining the students who vandalized the bathrooms, contacting their parents about the incident, talking about the trend on the PA announcements, and conversing with other students about the trend. 

Some students believe that Christopher Aguinaga should try a slightly different approach. 

“Do a gradual punishment,” senior Sperti suggested. “Start with detention. Students don’t want to stay after school, so it may be a good deterrent.” 

Conversely, there are others who believe the way our principal is handling the situation is good. 

“Kids are kids,” said sophomore Ender Ross. “They’re going to do stupid stuff. Not an expulsion, but maybe a suspension and a fine.”

All in all, there are a couple of reasons why teenagers are doing this. 

“There’s a thrill of doing something wrong that students have had for years,” said Aguinaga. “You can get a lot of popularity from social media with likes and shares, so that may be another reason as well.”

The trend has been slowly dying down; although it was supposed to stop in September, Christopher Aguinaga is doing his best to bring this trend to a halt.