THE SHORT VERSION:
I LIKE YOU! is the NYC party we dreamed about before we ever lived in NYC.
It's kids rubbing shoulders with stars rubbing shoulders with local characters; everybody is welcome, you just gotta show up.
Founded by Isaac Likes, the idea is simple:
HAVE FUN, FLIRT, AND LET LOOSE.
Come see for yourself.
I LIKE YOU!
THE LONG VERSION:
It starts like this. I was the kid in school who was terrified that I wouldn't get invited to the party.
I grew up in New Zealand and I wanted to get out of there. But my only access to what was happening in music, fashion and nightlife in the big global cities came from films, magazines and blogs. I was obsessed.
It was the golden age of party photography and photo diaries, and guys like The Cobrasnake and Olivier Zahm were Gods to me – I'd wake up to look at every single photo they'd taken from the night before.
And the parties were endless. They'd be in Paris one night, London the next,
Los Angeles for three days then
Tokyo for a week.
But my favorites were always in
New York City.
I had to figure out a way to get over there. So I started a blog. Isaac Likes. And I signed off every entry I LIKE YOU! I wrote about fashion and I was relentless and ballsy and people liked reading it and it did well enough that I was able to fund a trip to Paris Fashion Week.
I knew nobody, so I figured the best way to meet people was to interview them. I made these little I LIKE YOU! stickers with my URL on the bottom and when I interviewed people I'd hand them a sticker, and people reacted very strongly to the sticker. Especially the Americans.
Fast forward a few years and I'd moved to NYC to work as a fashion journalist but I was partying so much that I couldn't afford to pay my rent, so I started DJing to supplement my income. I brought back the I LIKE YOU! sticker as a quasi business card.
Once again, people liked the stickers so much that I decided to make I LIKE YOU! T-shirts, and I was DJing nonstop in clubs and at events for brands I'd
only every dreamed about, and everything was going
great but then the pandemic hit.
Within about a week the whole world shut down and I had so much downtime that I figured I'd better do something, so I set myself a goal of making three Tiktok videos a day and I built up a bit of a following, and when things opened back up, I was booked to DJ one night, and I made a video and said, "Hey I'm playing at Short Stories on Thursday night, consider this your invitation," and 800 people showed up.
So a couple of weeks later I did it again, and this time I figured I'd better call it an I LIKE YOU! party and I made a flyer, and 1000 people showed up. I'm not 100% sure, but I have a strong feeling that the I LIKE YOU! party was the first party born from Tiktok.
Since then, it's grown, We had 3000 people come to our NYFW party at The Jane. We've traveled it to LA and Miami, and this year we're taking it around the world.
I was the kid who was terrified of not getting invited to the party and now I get to throw a party and everyone's invited.
I LIKE YOU!