The Bling Ring by Nancy Jo Sales

revolution,” although it’s anything but revolutionary. Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) was a scathing look at the materialistic (and ultimately criminal) culture created by Wall Street players like his main character, Sherman McCoy. But while yuppies might have been portrayed as loathsome in movies like Wall Street , they had stuff, and their stuff was coveted. A bemused Michael Douglas said in a 2012 interview that young men routinely come up to him and say, “Gordon Gekko! You’re my hero! You’re the reason I went to Wall Street!”—as if Wall Street were an inspirational film rather than a cautionary tale about a financial crook.
    Greed was suddenly good, so was shopping. In the wake of 9/11, then President George W. Bush elevated it to a patriotic act. (“Some don’t want to go shopping,” after the terrorist attack, Bush said. “That should not and that will not stand in America.”) Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City became our lovable over-spender, trolling for Manolos she couldn’t afford in between too many cosmopolitans. The show, which ran from 1998 to 2004, and could be credited with mainstreaming a familiarity with designer brands, became very popular among tween and teenage girls, who took to showing off their hauls from shopping expeditions in online “haul vlogs.” Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? (1999–2013) another popular show asked. Well, who didn’t? “Everyone wants to be rich,” said David Siegel, the private timeshare mogul profiled in the documentary The Queen of Versailles (2012). “If they can’t be rich, the next best thing is to feel rich.”
    By the 1980s, there weren’t songs on the radio anymore about loving your fellow human beings. “Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now,” sang the Youngbloods in 1967. “People all over the world, join hands, start a love train,” crooned the O’Jays in 1973. Now there were songs about loving yourself—and stuff. There was Madonna singing about being “a material girl,” “living in the material world.” There was Puff Daddy, in the 1990s, rapping, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.” In 2008, the R&B group Little Jackie proclaimed, “The world should revolve around me.” Jay-Z goes by the nickname “Hova”—as in Jehovah—and calls himself “the eighth wonder of the world.” The shift in values could be seen on television, too. There weren’t shows about poor families anymore, like Good Times (1974–1979) or The Waltons (1972–1981)—there were shows about rich people, Dynasty (1981–1989) and Dallas (1978–1991) and, of course, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous .
    Lifestyles had a long run, from 1984 to 1995, and its impact was enormous. Now regular people could see what it was like to be rich from the inside—and they wanted it. “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” (1996) by rappers Kool G Rap and DJ Polo, trumpeted the delights of having a “yacht that makes the Love Boat look like a life raft.” Quite a change from the Intruders’ 1974 anthem, “Be Thankful for What You Got.”
    When I got a chance to talk to Nick Prugo and asked him why he thought Rachel Lee was so obsessed with their famous victims that she would steal their clothes, he said, “I think she just wanted to be part of the lifestyle. Like, the lifestyle that everybody kind of wants.”
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    When you drive up to the address of Indian Hills, the first thing you see is another school, Agoura High; the two schools share a campus. Agoura is a bustling, idyllic sort of American high school, very proud of its Chargers football team. It sits in a large tan brick building with a parking lot full of luxury cars, shiny BMWs, Audis, and SUVs.
    Indian Hills, which has less than 100