High schools across America are experiencing school disruption due to a viral TikTok trend that
encourages misbehavior. Plainfield South is no exception.

The now disabled TikTok hashtag “#deviouslick” and “#diabolicallick” circulated the internet during the
months of August and September. The so-called challenge promoted theft and graffiti in schools.

“At first, we as an administration didn’t realize what was happening other than seeing vandalism in our
bathrooms,” said South’s principal Bob Yanello.

“We made the decision to take a pretty hard stand right off the bat and say we are going to limit who is
going to the bathroom and how often to make sure there is supervision with that,” Yanello said.

The bathroom supervision lasted just under a full week. Yanello empathized with frustrated students.
“Not only were we upset with it, the students became upset with the fact that, ‘Why do we need an escort?’
`We’re not babies!’ and I get that,” Yanello said.

Campus monitor Darren Glover said the TikTok challenges caused disruptions in other aspects as well.

“Campus monitors and other staff members have been called away from productive activities such as
counseling sessions and maintaining a secure campus, in order to monitor bathrooms and escort
students,” Glover said.

These trends do come at a price and could result in the school having to take legal action.

“There could be tickets issued, arrests for disorderly conduct or destruction of private property,
suspension, or something as simple as a Saturday school or detention.” Yanello said. “Nobody wants to
send their kid to a school that has potential criminal activity.”

In fact, police action has already been taken in numerous states across the nation. In Arizona, a 15 year
old student was arrested for stealing a school toilet paper dispenser as a result of participating in this
trend.

Administration was recently made aware of an updated social media calendar inviting students to
participate in a variety of activities, most of which involve illegal behavior.

“As I see this calendar moving forward, a lot of this stuff is flat out criminal,” Yanello said. “This will then
be dealt with by my Joliet Police Department and by the school because we are not going to hesitate to go
there if it is criminal.”

Not only are campus monitors and higher ups being affected, the teachers are as well.

English teacher Kaitlin Mahoney said she feels the vandalism is incredibly reckless and irresponsible.

“It's extremely disappointing to know that students are willing to engage in this behavior for something as
meaningless and temporary as social media clout,” Mahoney said. She thanks the custodial staff for their hard work during these unfortunate events the last several months.

Even so, students eventually calmed down from the hype of the challenge and the destruction lessened.

Yanello said during Homecoming week and throughout the month of October, students have been
behaving much better.

“When we first went to the one-on-one escorts, we didn’t know how long it was going to last. After two
days it pretty much stopped,” Yanello said. Yanello expressed how proud he is of the student body for
their recent change in behavior and rewarded the students and staff with free TCBY frozen yogurt on
Friday, Oct. 8