When rising K-pop boy band Cortis kicked off their debut global tour in Incheon, South Korea, on July 18, the five-member group made an opening statement that has divided their fanbase far beyond the packed stadium walls. Dressed in laid-back, street-style fits that leaned into their signature cool, unapologetic energy, one member stepped forward and shouted to the crowd: “Put your phone down.”
Thousands of screaming fans responded with a sea of glowing phone screens held high, and a second, louder repetition only prompted a small portion of the audience to tuck their devices away. What could read as a lighthearted on-stage bit is actually the core mission of the tour, which bears the name *Put Your Phone Down*. After wrapping its initial stop in Incheon, the tour will travel to major North American cities including New York and Los Angeles before wrapping with a homecoming show in Seoul later this month.
For Cortis, the message is nothing new: the group has long pushed for fans to trade viewing a show through a six-inch screen for immersive, in-the-moment connection with their performance. The stance, however, has clashed with the deeply ingrained norms of K-pop fan culture, where fan-recorded content functions as a valuable social and community currency.
The divide is clear even among fans who attended the Incheon shows. For 22-year-old Park Ji-yeon, capturing every second of the performance was non-negotiable. She splurged on a rental of a high-end new smartphone for both days of the concert, motivated by the once-in-a-lifetime nature of the front-row spot she secured. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get this opportunity again,” Park explained in an interview with the BBC. “I usually film concerts because I know a lot of those memories will fade as soon as I leave the venue.”
Other fans have embraced the group’s call to disconnect. Twenty-five-year-old Kim Ga-eun, who watched the shows from the venue’s amphitheater seating, noted that groups of fans in the standing section put down their phones to dance together, embodying exactly what the tour set out to achieve.
Cortis, which debuted just over a year ago under BigHit Music — the same label that launched global supergroup BTS — has had a meteoric rise in the entertainment industry. Most of the group’s members are still teenagers, with the oldest, James, only 20 years old. Each of their music videos has racked up millions of views online, and just this past weekend, the group earned a major career milestone with a performance at Chicago’s iconic Lollapalooza music festival. The group’s name itself, derived from the phrase “colour outside the lines,” reflects their ethos of breaking convention — a value that clearly extends to their stance on concert phone use.
Cortis is far from alone in this push. A growing number of high-profile artists across the globe have pushed for fans to put away their phones during live shows, taking increasingly bold stances. Singers Phoebe Bridgers and Alicia Keys have gone as far as requiring concertgoers to store their devices in sealed lock pouches for the entirety of a performance. In 2023, Welsh rock band Suede’s frontman Brett Anderson made headlines when he climbed over a stage barrier during a Singapore show to grab phones out of fans’ hands. Even Billie Eilish, who has acknowledged that filming helps fans hold onto memories after a show, has gently urged front-row audiences: “Put your phone down, I’m right here.” Back in the K-pop world, Cortis’ labelmates BTS have also made similar requests of their crowds, with member Jungkook once teasing an audience to stop staring at their screens and look at him directly.
From an artist perspective, the push for phone-free shows centers on the value of live connection. “Interacting with fans is a really important part of performing, so I think they want people to focus more on that than on their phones,” Park said of Cortis’ request.
But for K-pop fandoms, the practice of filming shows serves a purpose that extends far beyond personal memory. Fancams — close-up, individual clips focused on a single group member — are a cornerstone of online K-pop community life. Once shared, these clips are pored over by fans, who dissect choreography, hunt for tiny, unplanned moments of expression, and repurpose clips into fan-made content that keeps fan communities active long after a tour ends.
This cultural context explains why Cortis’ repeated requests have left some fans frustrated. Disgruntled comments began circulating online immediately after the tour’s opening day, with many fans pointing to the exorbitant cost of attending live shows. Park, who spent more than 1 million won (roughly $700) to attend both days of the Incheon leg, noted: “I think a lot of fans spent similar amounts of money, so constantly hearing them asking us to put our phones down made some fans even more frustrated.”
It appears the group heard these fan concerns, and softened their message by the second day of the Incheon run. Kim recalled that the framing shifted noticeably between the two shows: “On the first day, the message felt more like, ‘Let’s put our phones down and have fun together.’ On the second day, it changed slightly to, ‘We understand why you want to film, so let’s just make sure we enjoy ourselves together.’ They said filming was okay, but they wanted us to enjoy the concert together, and that ‘Put Your Phone Down’ was more of a mindset.”