It must be tough, being “average” and “middle class” and living within sniffing distance of L.A.’s rich and beautiful people. The designer clothes, the pricey homes, flashy cars and flashier jewelry must seem just within reach, especially to the young and avaricious.

That’s the temptation of “The Bling Ring,” Sofia Coppola’s scintillating follow-up to the sleep-inducing “Somewhere.” Coppola’s film, based on a Vanity Fair article about the crimes, the criminals and the world they ran in, is a winking condemnation of a generation of naive, covetous, privacy-abandoning teens — and their victims, celebrities so vapid they leave doors unlocked, so vulnerable in an age where the Internet tracks their every out-of-town trip, every red carpet appearance.

Because if there’s one thing these dizzy L.A. larcenists have a handle on, it’s social media. They don’t wear gloves, don’t rush through the houses they enter and pilfer, don’t realize that the gate camera (which they walk toward backwards, wearing hoodies, so that their faces are hidden) isn’t the only camera in a multimillion-dollar hillside Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom or Lindsay Lohan abode. But they can track their prey online and Facebook photos of their haul.

Becca (Katie Chang) links up with the new kid in her Calabasas high school, Marc (Israel Broussard), because of his fashion sense. He’s gay. And when she says, “Let’s check some cars” after hitting a party, he’s down for anything — pulling on car doors, seeing what can be snatched from a vehicle that isn’t locked.

Chloe (Claire Julien) is Becca’s blond bombshell pal, also down for anything. Nicki (Emma Watson) and Sam (Taissa Farmiga) are the rest of this pot-smoking, Kanye- and M.I.A.-listening posse. They discover that the celebrities they long to emulate are as careless about locking their doors as “The Bling Ring” are about hiding their activities.

As with her best films, Coppola is utterly at ease in this milieu and it shows. We’re allowed to giggle at Nicki’s and Sam’s (all names were changed) insipid, self-help, home-schooling mom (Leslie Mann, on the nose) and her “teaching,” inspired by “The Secret.” The homes of the rich are often expensively tacky. The girls all have that mousy/sexy Kardashian growl and a thorough knowledge of high-end brands — Chanel, Rolex, Louboutin, Herve Leger.

All it takes is a text — “Let’s go to Paris” — and they’re off, “shopping” at the Hilton home, or at Megan’s or Lindsey’s.

The performances capture the utter amorality of it all. They’re an amusingly hateful bunch, their sole redeeming quality being the real and really gauche people they’re robbing. If their inspiration was a lifestyle achieved by virtue of looks, shamelessness and a willingness to abandon privacy and “sell” anything, why should anyone be surprised that the ring’s imitation of that life went this far?