Photo by Matt Lief Anderson

Last week I watched Purity Ring perform to a capacity crowd in Melbourne, Australia. If you want to see some photos of their show (or 15-second videos) then open up Instagram and search for #purityring. There’s approximately 69,000 crowd shots of the band performing (and a few "abstinence selfies" of kids wearing actual purity rings). This is how we now consume our culture--by shooting it--a sure sign we feel more comfortable "capturing the moment" than living in it.

For the duration of the evening the person beside me photographed and filmed the show with their phone. In front of me, every song, a new row of illuminated screens suddenly obstructed my view with a glowing, miniaturized version of what we were watching.

It’s hard not to wonder if these technophile fans know they are diluting not only their own but other people’s cultural intimacy. They obviously paid no attention when Jarvis Cocker said, "It seems stupid to have something happening in front of you and look at it on a screen that's smaller than the size of a cigarette packet. If anything, it undermines the experience because it seemed like a really good moment and now I can see it was crap."

-=-=-=-Sadly, memory-making as visual bootlegging is now wholly a part of the live music experience and it has been since the advent of smartphones. Watching people not watch, or watch through their screens, or simply hit record and clumsily loft the phone above them—what’s the purpose? To remember for all time? To share the experience? What friend is going to be impressed or even have the patience to watch a barely focused video shot from hundreds of feet away, the audio blown out, the shouted-along chorus of the superfan in seat 78JJ muting the band itself?

It’s time we stopped being so tolerant of these serial snappists.

It can be done; I’ve seen it work firsthand. In 2012 during a brief visit to New York City I went to Brooklyn Bowl, where Questlove was mixing tracks to honor the legacy of Michael Jackson and everyone was having a great time dancing. There was no one standing and staring at Questlove, so I tried to get a quick holiday snap. But as I raised my camera to take a quick photo I was blinded by a flashlight. A security guard had spotted me across the room and had decided to shine and shame me. I attempted a few more times, but each time I was struck by his high-wattage beam. At the time I didn’t really see the harm in taking a photo in a busy nightclub. I wasn’t obstructing anyone’s view. But in the live music setting when everyone’s looking in the same direction, the fluorescent glow from a cell phone is an obnoxious distraction, an annoyance and an impedement to the concert itself. In that setting, the flashlight method has value. Sure, it’ll be incredibly annoying having flashlights beaming across the room, but it might be the only way to get the message across. Target the serial offenders, like the one standing next to me during Purity Ring.

The issue isn’t just impacting fans; artists too are asking that the tiny cameras be kept away. Jehnny Beth, vocalist for British punk band Savages, has spoken out about cameras detracting from the live experience. She’s called them "uncivilised", and her band has enacted what she calls a "guide" for fans, advising them not to shoot photos or film during their shows. At Savages’ live shows signs have been erected, reading, "Our goal is to discover better ways of living and experiencing music. We believe that the use of phones and film to take pictures during a gig prevents all of us from totally immersing ourselves." But has it worked? A search for #savagesband on Instagram suggests it might have: there’s just 808 posts, but under #savages there’s 207,000, some of which are most likely to be of the band. I saw Savages play in 2014 and there were plenty of screens lighting up tiny pockets of the room.