FROM THE DESK OF UPRISERS®
Update 02.10.26
Location: Far Bar, Little Tokyo | Community Quilting May 2025 | Photo credit: Lauryn Alejo
We slowed down so that we can show UP.
What 8 Months Offline Taught Us About Building UPRISERS (and How We’re Showing Up in 2026).
We've been trained to over-rely on platforms that don't belong to us.
In May 2025, The UPRISERS team stepped back from social media. Not because we had nothing to say—BUT because always "being on” not only drained us, it was quietly pushing us away from something that was non-negotiable — our values and how we want to show up for others.
What we did instead.
Stepping away from constant posting helped us return to what's always been true: being present, showing UP in real life, and building with OUR COMMUNITY.
From workshops ROOTED IN COMMUNITY to field trips in Little Tokyo..
Location: Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles | Community Field Trip May 2025 | Photo credit: Lauryn Alejo
Photo credit: Krizia Studio, Kimberly Ha, Henri Trinh, Mazhar Badani
To going beyond our home base of Los Angeles to embrace family across the United States..
We are building a community committed to fighting the erasure of our history and making space for our stories to be celebrated.
Location: Complexcon Las Vegas, Formula Drift Long Beach, Terasaki Budokan | Family Drive November 2025 | Photo credit: Kimberly Au, Loungebooth
In 2025, we reunited with friends and family at Complexcon Las Vegas and Family Drive at Terasaki Budokan, and learned from our new friends on the circuits of Seattle, St. Louis, and Long Beach.
What we learned from being offline.
UPRISERS storytelling has always been driven by real people and real stories. we exist to be in service to our community. Slowing down on social media gave us the space to create and experiment for ourselves rather than chasing trends dictated and controlled by algorithms.
Photo credit: Kimberly Au
In 2025, we officially launched UPRISERS LAB to be a window into our design process—more transparency, more craft, and more ROOTS.
Location: Terasaki Budokan | Family Drive November 2025 | Photo credit: Loungebooth
Partnering with community who teaches us how to show UP.
Hosting workshops that inspires us to expand the lifecycle of materials that currently exist around us.
We will continue to show up with intention.
UPRISERS is dedicated to creativity, transformation, and COMMUNITY impact. And this means showing up with intention, not from the constant pressure to always be online.
The future we're building is meant to be lived not just watched. Join us.
We’re taking a step away from social media.
It’s seen as a universal strategy to be ‘omni’, so as a brand we leaned into social media. We posted and reposted across Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube shorts, and even Pinterest. We experimented with everything from fliers to trending reels but in the end our analytics said no one can see you unless you pay for ads, and more importantly our team said ‘We’re exhausted.’
As we tumbled into a chaotic January 2025, our team collectively decided that both for our self-care, and out of frustration for the unclear futures of TikTok and Instagram, to get off of the hamster wheel of social media.
The founding principles of UPRISERS have and always will be discovering, telling and amplifying untold stories to build a better future now.
From May 1st onward UPRISERS will be focusing on our newsletter, launching long-form videos on YouTube and bringing back live and virtual opportunities to gather in community.
When things get crazy, and the world feels like chaos, and every day feels like a rush to a goal that someone else has set for us, we have decided to slow down our process so that we can embrace the pace that WE have set.
The same energies we were putting into a trending reel that will be seen once in passing and then forgotten, we will put their energy to better use. We recognize that the value our team brings to community storytelling can be reallocated in more impactful ways.
So for now, we’re saying goodbye to social media.
Clearly communicating our intentions and process continues to be important to us and we recognize that many people still receive most of their information from Instagram. Once a week, you’ll see a roundup in our IG stories with links from our newsletter, YouTube and LinkedIn.
We encourage you to engage with us there.
UPRISERS was never intended to be one voice, but a platform to amplify a community of voices so if our messages resonate with you, if our designs and fashion tell a story that you feel needs to be told we encourage you to share with others.
Nothing great is accomplished alone.
Grateful for community,
We Are UPRISERS
