Just like Warhol and Mohammed’s texts, Tao Lin’s, Shoplifting for American Apparel, is a satire of American culture and criticism of post-modernism. Lin however, focuses mainly on American culture’s effect on the young. In the novel, the main character is Sam, a college graduate from NYU that spends most of his time chatting with friends, gambling, traveling, and going to parties. Sam is just living life as it goes and does not care about the future. Sam is a representation of a young American living in a meaningless world with no goals or aspirations in life. The reader is able to conclude this about Sam when he tells Ben at the vegan restaurant, that he wanted to commit suicide because he was tired of life (33). By Sam saying he wants to commit suicide, he is indicating that he is unhappy and does not have a purpose in his life. In my opinion, Sam seems to be disappointed and depressed about what he has become of in life because he mentions the struggles he has as a writer. In a Gmail chat with Luis, Sam discusses the economic problems they are in and how one day they hoped to get out of poverty through their writing (6-7). From this conversation, I assumed that Lin was trying to criticize a situation America is currently in. Today, many graduates are unable to get jobs or a good salary and therefore have to work in restaurants like Sam in order to be financially stable.  Also, at the end of the novel, we discover that Sam always wanted to be a Marine biologist, which means that he is  not living the life he desired.

                Also, since Sam is hopeless about life, he sort of takes refuge in the materialistic world. He spends the majority of his time on his laptop, cell phone, and stealing items from stores. In the novel, Sam also represents young Americans’ obsession with brands. When Sam stoled the earphones from the NYU store, he tells the girl that stoled from Urban Outfitters, that he wanted the forty dollar ones and not the cheap four dollar ones (57).  From this, I concluded that Lin is demonstrating how young Americans are so obsessed with brands that they feel the urge to rob in order to get them. This idea is supported on page 59, when the prisoners in the cell knew the moment Sam walked in why he was arrested. The reason why these prisoners knew was because it was common for teens to get arrested for stealing. In fact, Sam stoled twice in the novel and got away with it, meaning that Lin wants readers to question America’s legal system and the moral values it’s teaching the young.

Just the way Lin wrote the book, I think gives the feeling of a young person wasting their life.  Lin does not give descriptions about anything and just declares statements of what each character does. There is also a lethargic tone to Sam that reveals his hopeless life being supported by the American culture that surrounds him.