Imagine this: you’re sitting in English class, Romeo and Juliet in hand. Although this is your favorite Shakespeare play, you have the overwhelming urge to use the restroom, and after asking nicely, your teacher allows you to go.

You head for the bathroom in the 300 commons first, the closest in proximity to your class. An apocalyptic-like scene meets you. Toilet paper strewn across the floor, soap dispensers missing, and the stall doors absent. It looks like something you’d see in those weird dreams about school, but as it becomes increasingly evident as you poke around the bathroom, this is real life, and the bathroom really looks like that

Plenty of questions wander through your head, but the urge to relieve yourself overpowers them. You leave the concerning scene and head to the closest bathroom from there, the bathroom that lies in between the 300 and 600 hallways.

Expecting the opposite of the previous bathroom, you are once again shocked to find an almost identical display. Everything is in disarray, although it seems someone missed a soap dispenser, instead choosing to dump the soap on the floor.

Two in a row is a coincidence, but three in a row is a pattern, and after hurriedly walking to the bathroom in the 600 commons by the elevator, you realize that the state of these restrooms is a pattern, one that comes at a cost to you and your bladder.

No doors. No soap. No toilet paper. You peek inside a stall. No toilet.

Our school has not experienced the ‘trend’ of vandalism to this extent, but many, many middle schools, high schools, and universities around the country have.

It started with a soap dispenser. There’s a very real possibility that the creator of the trend, @jugg4elias on TikTok, (a now banned account) didn’t actually steal a soap dispenser but acquired it through other means. Regardless, the display of vandalism and theft found on jugg4elias’s TikTok video started a wave of ‘fashionable and trendy’ crime in educational institutions countrywide. It started from a ‘How’d you get the dispenser off the wall?’ and quickly escalated to a ‘Why don’t any of the bathroom stalls have doors?” and has now reached the extent of “Where are the fire exit signs? Where are the microscopes? Where is all the other expensive and important school equipment?”

Schools have started taking disciplinary action, and many have decided to report theft and vandalism of school property to local police forces.

But why? Vandalism and theft have always been a crime, and the consequences have always been present. So why throw away the possibility of a future for a TikTok video? Why put the attention of strangers on social media over the conditions of a building that you ultimately have to spend a third of your day in?

Ruining the quality and integrity of a school isn’t something one wakes up and decides to do. But when someone sees video after video of people stealing and destroying school property, the consequences of such actions don’t seem as obvious as they were before, and the crime seems more appealing than ever.

Despite this, the repercussions are still present. If property damage exceeds $500 dollars—and the majority of these cases do—the perpetrator can be charged with a felony and face up to 10 years in prison, with a fine included, thus throwing away possibilities of dream colleges and careers.

And on the chance one gets away with it, it doesn’t end with the trend. It starts with petty theft, but it can very quickly escalate to bigger cases of vandalism and even public hate speech, such as the two cases of antisemitism at Pope High School and Lassiter High School, observed within a week of each other.

The Devious Lick trend is the epitome of a dumb, unfunny trend, but unlike other trends that usually end with embarrassment or hilarity, this trend ends with shame and consequences that will last long after the trend has blown down. There’s no going back on vandalism or theft, but there is always an opportunity to better yourself and your community.

An anonymous student here at Kennesaw Mountain High School has taken matters into their own hands. They have placed soap in bathrooms around the school so that students can still wash their hands during a pandemic. This inspiring display of leadership is a reminder of how actions speak louder than words. No one asked them to spend their own money to provide soap for the school bathrooms, but they did it anyways to make our school a better place, one devious fix at a time.