TikTok has once again risen to the forefront of school conversation, only this time it isn’t about Renegade or Track Stars. This new trend, devious licks, has proven to be less amusing and more costly to the SLUH campus and the integrity of the student body.

These notorious devious licks videos consist of students pulling bizarre items that they have stolen from their schools out of their backpacks with the TikTok sound “Ski Ski Basedgod” by Lil B. The stolen items range from hand sanitizer pumps to stall dividers to projectors. 

“I was really hopeful that this wasn't going to come our way,” said Assistant Principal for Student Life Brock Kesterson. “Obviously, it has and I'm frustrated by it. I think that we can do better than that.” 

devious licks had previously arisen to fame at other St. Louis high schools. Other principals and deans of students were wrestling with how to combat the notorious TikTok trend. Kesterson and Director of Security Dan Schulte heard these stories, yet they held out hope that the students of SLUH would not dare to pull off any mischievous licks.

“We thought that we had students of a higher standard than most,” said Schulte. “This is SLUH, a select school for select students. And we want our students to make better choices.” 

Last week, devious licks reached the halls of St. Louis U. High. Early in the week, reports began rolling into Kesterson’s office of destroyed property and items that had mysteriously disappeared. It seemed like Kesterson’s worst nightmare had come true.

“I had gotten a report of a stall door that was off of its hinges, I thought it was a one-off incident at the time,” said Kesterson. “And then there was another incident. A urinal partition was off, a sign had disappeared. That is when we started to realize that we may have been hit by the old Devious Lick trend.”

Over the coming week, bathroom stall doors were mysteriously dismantled from their hinges, soap dispensers were disappearing across the school, and other acts of vandalism popped up across the Backer Memorial campus. Teachers across the building saw these acts as an act of disrespect to the building and grounds of SLUH.

“I don’t understand why anyone would want to tarnish or damage or destroy a school that they claim to care about with disregard to the people that it affects and the cost that it incurs,” said math teacher Stephen Deves. “If that is your way of expressing humor, you need to find a better way to be funny.”

A reason that the popularity of the devious licks trend has skyrocketed is that many find the videos of students pulling absurd items taken from their school to be witty and funny.

“The devious lick trend is super funny but, there can be hard consequences,” said freshman Tim Wilmes. “Of course it isn’t funny when it is happening at your own school.”

After the initial reports, Kesterson and Schute began devising a way to respond to the perpetrators and address the growing crisis. They began launching an investigation into who had defaced the campus and participated in the trend. Over the rest of the week, Kesterson and Schulte compiled a list of students that had committed these various acts of vandalism. 

Finding a suitable punishment for the perpetrators was the next step. Kesterson and Schulte discussed a variety of punishments ranging from a simple jug to a more elaborate out of school suspension. However, punishments were doled out on a case by case situation, where Kesterson looked at each individual case and gave a punishment that he thought fit the severity of the infringement. 

“Punishments depend on the level of participation and the severity of the act, it can be anywhere from JUGS to in-school suspensions,” said Kesterson. “We keep asking: ‘how are they going to learn from this?’ So we also have included a reflection about their actions.” 

Last week, Kesterson brought in 15 students from the freshman and sophomore class to try to get to the bottom about who was participating in the devious licks trend. Through these interviews, Kesterson obtained a list of the various students that participated and then dealt with each accordingly. Eight students have received punishments so far, for either being actively involved or a peripheral bystander. The investigation, however, is ongoing and Schulte and Kesterson and diligently working to uncover others involved in these acts of vandalism. 

During his investigation, it was quickly revealed that a majority of the students participating in the heists were underclassmen, particularly the freshman. Kesterson attributes this odd trend to the simple fact that the sophomores and freshmen have not developed a love for the building as the upperclassmen have. 

“I think juniors and seniors get this place, they love this place. They wouldn't want to do anything to vandalize or steal from this place,” said Kesterson. “I think freshmen and sophomores are still trying to figure it out. Especially the freshmen and that's been where most of our focus has been.” 

Drastic measures have already been taken to address the devious licks issue. Many of the vandalism efforts are happening within the school’s bathrooms. Bathrooms do not have any cameras and are relatively private areas, giving students ample opportunities to vandalize them.

“Most of the stuff was a place that was kind of out of sight, out of mind,” said Kesterson. “Bathrooms. What do you do in bathrooms? You can’t put cameras in bathrooms. We have cameras all over the place which have been really helpful even in this situation, but not in the bathrooms. So we’ll have to be more vigilant with how we kind of monitor that system.”

In an effort to decrease the likelihood of vandalism, they have begun targeting the problem spots such as the senior hallway bathroom. Last week, perpetrators attempted to rip off the urinal dividers in the bathroom as a devious lick, however they failed to do so but in the process destroyed the dividers. Instead of going through the process of ordering new ones and replacing them, the dividers were simply removed. 

“That bathroom (senior hallway) has already been hit and now it's been hit twice so we thought that we would take away the potential for more damage and then we'll deal with it at a later time,” said Schulte. 

The removal of the dividers has sent many students in a frenzy, arguing that their privacy has been violated and asking for a swift return of the urinal partitions. 

“I just want to pee in peace,” said senior Ismael Karim. “There is no need for me to go to the bathroom and feel uncomfortable, but now the dividers are gone.” 

Not only has the devious licks trend impacted the rest of the student body, but it has also greatly increased the workload of SLUH’s Environmental Service Team. Now, the Environmental Service employees are working overtime to clean up the student’s messes caused by the devious lick trend.

The Environmental Service team works so hard to make this place look nice,” said Schulte. “It's pretty much a slap in their face that we have students at school who think so little of our staff and employees  that they're going to try to damage property and make these guys work even harder. It's just not right.”

As of this past week, cases of devious licks incidents have been on the decline. However, if cases were to rise again, Kesterson and Schulte are not afraid to increase the severity of the punishments if need be, even if that means bringing in law enforcement to conduct an outside investigation and handle it accordingly. 

“We don't want to get to a point where we have to throw our hands up and say it's now a matter for the police. But if this trend continues, and we can't handle it with our measures here, the next step down the road would involve the police,” said Schulte.

For both students and faculty, the devious licks trend is disappointing. Disappointing to see that many students lack a respect for the halls of SLUH and that they are not living up to the school standards. 

“As a senior, as somebody that has seen this school and walked through this school for four years, I want the freshman to be more responsible and respectful,” said senior Matthew Kluba. “It’s unfortunate that TikTok and these social media apps that are supposed to be for the greater good aren’t being used for the greater good here at SLUH.” 

“It shows that sometimes kids are a bunch of followers, not the leaders that we try to train them to be,” said Schulte. “We don't want our students here to be followers. We want our students to be leaders.”