On December 17th, schools around the country were placed on high alert because of TikTok threats labeled “National Shoot Up Your School Day.” Although these threats were deemed not credible, many schools, including Hackley, chose to have a police presence at school on the 17th in an abundance of caution, with some even closing for the day. TikTok is one of the most popular apps for teenagers and tweens, but some trends that frequent the videos on the app can be dangerous, especially for younger kids.
On December 16th, Head of School Michael Wirtz sent an email to the Hackley community about the issue and stressed that Hackley takes these threats seriously.
“I believe that [Hackley] responded pretty well because I saw the police on the circle near the senior lounge,” junior Liam Abraham said. “Since I didn’t take these threats that seriously, I was surprised [the police] had actually been called.” The Town of Greenburgh sent patrols to all schools in their district, which students took note of.
The “National Shoot Up Your School Day” trend is not the only dangerous trend that has circulated on TikTok. In August of 2021, a challenge called the “Milk Crate Challenge” rose to fame on the app. It features a pile of milk crates stacked to create a double staircase shape. People try to climb up one side and climb down the other, with the possibility of dangerous consequences. This trend not only resulted in injuries, but also resulted in people taking up valuable hospital beds during the pandemic. With many hospitals already at capacity, purposely doing something bound to injure oneself is disrespectful and immature.
TikTok seems to be taking steps to stop these dangerous trends from circulating, with only a few “National Shoot Up Your School Day” TikToks still left on the platform, and all videos with “Milk Crate Challenge” being taken down. When looking up this hashtag in the app’s search function, there is a message on the website that says “No results found. This phrase may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines. Promoting a safe and positive experience is TikTok’s top priority. For more information, we invite you to review our Community Guidelines.” TikTok invites users to “Stop, Think, Decide, and Act.”
Looking at TikTok’s previous history with keeping dangerous trends up, like the “Tide Pod Challenge”, it is clear that they are improving on the speed of taking dangerous trends down before they gain enough traction to seriously hurt someone. Devin Bernstein, a senior, says that “I have not taken part in any dangerous challenges, but I feel like most of that gets removed. There’s some dangerous stuff but it’s not that bad and gets removed if it’s really bad”.
Although many TikTok trends are dangerous, others are problematic in other ways. For example, the “Devious Licks” trend is where students steal items from their school. The trend is simple: record yourself taking something from school, then record your backpack, and finally you take the object out of your bag once you are home. Examples used to include bathroom soap dispensers, small garbage cans, pencil sharpeners, and useful items like those. However, as the trend progressed, people on the app started stealing things like bathroom stall doors, printers, and even exit signs.
Luckily, this trend did not reach Hackley, but multiple schools across the country had to shut down their bathrooms, as seen on TikTok.