What Is The Devious Lick Trend, And Is It Encouraging Students To Steal?

There have been many times in the past few years where the extent that an "internet trend" that could endanger children has been grossly overstated. Many consider the damage done by Tide Pod Challenge to have been blown out of proportion, same with the unsubstantiated Kia Challenge that supposedly encouraged people to hotwire Kia cars.

But the devious licks trend, unfortunately, is a trend school children participated in and documented themselves doing extensively. Here's what the Zoomer phrase "devious lick" means, and how it encouraged school children to steal increasingly expensive things from their schools.

What Was The "Devious Lick" TikTok Trend?

The "devious lick" TikTok trend originated in the first week of September 2021, around when schools first re-opened after the COVID-19 pandemic sent everyone in quarantine for nearly a year. The trend essentially started like this: kids would steal things from the classroom and post a video of it, primarily on TikTok. The earliest few videos showed kids taking small but important things home, like a hand sanitizer dispenser or a clock

But as school kids saw their peers stealing on the incredibly targetted algorithm TikTok provides, hitting a "devious lick" turned into a competition. Kids began trying to one-up their fellow classmates by stealing increasingly large and more difficult things from their school, like fire alarms or entire bathroom doors.

Where Does The Phrase 'Devious Lick' Come From?

The phrase "devious lick" originates from the phrase "hitting a lick," which essentially means "to rob someone." Some sources track the coinage of the phrase back to Scarface's 1991 song "Good Girl Gone Bad," but the word "lick" was likely brought to the attention of younger people because of rapper Roddy Ricch's hugely popular song "The Box," where he says, "Bustin' all the bells out the box / I just hit a lick with the box."

The phrase "devious lick" presumably comes from the popularisation of the word "lick," combined with the humor of giving a fitting adjective to the term. "Devious licks" are sometimes also called "diabolical licks" or variations of the sort.

What Was The Fallout From The 'Devious Lick' Trend?

As students began to wreak havoc on school supplies, the media picked up on the trend and reported on it extensively. By mid-September, the phrase 'devious lick' and all videos associated with the trend had been banned from TikTok.

For the full history of the devious lick trend, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.