The great concert debate: Are cellphones ruining the live experience?

While some fans sympathized, others said that smartphones were a necessity for young concertgoers. Some argued that phones helped alleviate issues like social anxiety and dissociation amid big crowds. After a day or two of inflamed discourse between her fans, Mitski’s tweets were deleted. (Mitski declined to comment for this story.)

Among Mitski fans at the Shrine, divisions abounded — and were surprisingly varied across generational lines.

“(Mitski) is at odds with the digital age because she only wants to be performing when she’s onstage,” said writer Chingy Nea, 28, who also attended the show. “It has to be hard as a performer when everybody would rather be an amateur videographer than an active participant.”

“I think she has such a liberated approach to music-making,” said Rocky, 21 (they declined to use their surname). “I used to record everything, but I realized that whatever satisfaction I (can get) watching those videos, it wasn’t worth the attention I was giving my phone in real-time.”

Krystle, 36, disagreed: “A video is a souvenir, and it doesn’t cost as much as a T-shirt,” she said. “Just don’t use flash and you won’t bother anybody.”

The unrelenting demands of social media have many emerging artists, expected to market themselves online with the same fervor with which they make their art, on the verge of fizzling out. In January, electro-pop artist Chelsea Cutler, 25, professed as much in an Instagram post that accumulated over 104,000 likes and support from artists like Maren Morris, Hayley Kiyoko and James Blake.