As the Curriculum Chair for Survivors to Superheroes I think a lot about how adolescents are educated about consent and sexual violence. As a parent, I have dealt with situations of peer-on-peer violence against my children. The work I do, as well as my experiences as a parent, have made me more aware as a middle school teacher. One of the jobs I am tasked with is to stay abreast of any outside influences which may, potentially, affect my students. Recently, the Devious Licks TikTok Challenges crept into my middle school world and announced themselves with acts of vandalism in line with the September challenge of “mess up a toilet/vandalize the bathroom at school”. While the school followed established protocol when addressing the offense – camera footage reviewed and age-appropriate consequences meted out- there is a more insidious problem to be faced. Vandalism, while destructive and illegal, is not on the same level as some of the other challenges which encourage, glorify, and actually train middle school students to become sexual harassers and to commit sexual assault.
Middle school is all about trying new things and discovering who you are. A middle schooler is an adolescent who will not have a fully developed brain for another decade. Adolescents are defined by the actions they take and the lessons they, hopefully, learn from the consequences of those actions. The decisions they make while being influenced by a social media platform, which is preying on them, can be devastating for all involved. Some of the later challenges included “smack a staff member on the backside”, “deck the halls and show your b**** in school hallway”, “jab a breast” and “kiss your friend’s girlfriend at school”. Schools are intended to be safe spaces. Making it seem “cool” to engage in public nudity, sexual harassment or sexual assault, on school grounds, purposefully erodes those safe spaces.
These types of challenges are actively recruiting, training and rewarding adolescents for committing crimes and becoming sexual predators. While there may be consequences for the perpetrators- if there are witnesses, if they are caught, if they are brought to the proper authorities- the only thing that is guaranteed is that there is a victim who is left with the fallout from these deplorable actions. Parents and teachers are often unaware of social media trends. The platform which allows this type of content (ie. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram) needs to be more proactive in preventing the content from even appearing. The user who created this content published a list of future challenges. While Tiktok eventually removed the content from their platform there was an opportunity to be proactive and prevent these crimes from even happening in the first place. We also need to assume that variations on these types of challenges will appear in the future. While content such as this may be created by minors, for minors, TikTok can make a stand against their platform being used to cultivate sexual predators. There is no reason, or excuse, not to deal with this head on. The adolescents, the children, for that’s what they are, deserve better than to have Tik Tok passively condoning this training campaign.
Max Tortorello-Allen
I’m Maxton, a Middle School teacher living outside of New York City, and the father of a survivor. As my family was seeking a path to healing, we discovered few helpful resources and wanted to do something about that. I joined Survivors to Superheroes to help bring resources and information to those who needed it when they needed it the most. As Curriculum Chair, my goal is to help survivors, their families, and those who love them, to begin and continue the healing process. When I am not working towards this goal I can usually be found playing with my granddaughters and enjoying nature.