This is the first in a four-part reader challenge on creating a healthy relationship with social media.

It was a Friday night and Sarah Edwards was where her 20,000 Instagram followers expected to find her: out on the town.

Wrapped in a form-fitting dress, her blonde mane flowing, Edwards stepped into the Semple Mansion, a luxe historic home near downtown Minneapolis where a small crowd had gathered.

“Surprise!” the group shouted. Cameras flashed. Video rolled. Edwards broke into a knowing smile.

Edwards has become accustomed to attention since arriving on the (virtual) scene more than a decade ago. As one of Minnesota’s earliest social media influencers, she used digital platforms to promote her I Am Mpls! and Fashion Week Minnesota events. She launched her own marketing agency to generate buzz for high-profile clients including Hilton hotels and the Timberwolves.

Digital clout helped rocket the onetime waitress/receptionist from Grand Rapids, Minn., to a Twin Cities creative-scene mover-and-shaker. But despite the glamourous lifestyle Edwards cultivated — she drove a Range Rover in exchange for posting about it — the trappings of micro-celebrity began to take a toll.

“I’ve made a lot of impact in the community because of social media that I’m very proud of, and I’ve also struggled with it since day one,” said Sarah Edwards. (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Unbeknownst to those scrolling through Edwards’ fabulous outfits, her intertwined personal and professional lives were roiling. So much so that the ultimate connector — an acquaintance once dubbed Edwards “the Kevin Bacon of Minneapolis” — considered walking away from social media entirely. But her identity and financial security were founded on followers and likes. “I felt like it owned me,” she said.

Edwards’ fraught relationship with social media, and the addictive way it both connects us and isolates us, is an amplified version of what many of the 250-some million Americans who use these digital platforms experience. That’s why Edwards decided to reboot herself as a sort of mental health influencer exploring how social media impacts users’ well-being. Especially for teenagers, who average nearly five hours a day on the platforms and whose rates of depression and suicide are rising.

Last year, Edwards sold her business and is now trying to prune her proverbial Rolodex to focus more on her inner circle. That includes the guest of honor she’d escorted to the Semple: her mother, whom Edwards feted for her 70th birthday by working her influencer connections. (Use of the mansion and the W Hotel’s penthouse in exchange for posting.)

“I’m just trying to find my way back home to a life before social media,” Edwards said.

Having it all

Growing up in northern Minnesota, Edwards was known for her funky, thrift-store-enabled wardrobe and dreamed of moving to New York or Los Angeles. But having been raised by a single mom, money was tight, and Edwards also craved financial security. So she headed to college in North Dakota to learn engineering.

A year later, she changed course and moved to Minneapolis. Edwards studied advertising and got a job working the front desk of a small creative agency, where she grew into a director of marketing role. After hours, she waitressed.

In 2009, in what little free time Edwards had, she put on a variety show called I Am Mpls! She wanted to celebrate the city’s creative community with music, comedy and a fashion show featuring local innovators — chefs, entrepreneurs, filmmakers and the like — as models.

Her mom loaned her $250. (“I didn’t know that was a laughable amount to produce an event.”) She convinced local musician Adam Levy to walk the runway and then leveraged his name to secure other participants. She enlisted homegrown illustrator Adam Turman to make a poster. (“If people notice Adam made the poster, then it’ll be a legit event.”)

Edwards was not a boldface name — “I was a nobody, meaning, like, I’m a waitress and a receptionist” — but the event sold out. Seeing the cross-pollination of influential Minnesotans, from DJs to politicians, inspired her to create more events. “I got the itch, because I just loved community building,” she said.

Sarah Edwards at a Fashion Week Minnesota event. (Provided by Sarah Edwards)

In 2015, Edwards’ I Am … event series morphed into the biannual Fashion Week Minnesota she created with style editor Jahna Peloquin. Having zero promotion budget, Edwards used social media to spread the word. This was her first step on the path to what she now calls “the ever-so-annoying” title of influencer.

The dating app Bumble recognized Edwards’ ability to draw a crowd, both online and at events, and hired her to promote their brand. That gig led Edwards to start her own marketing agency, Some Great People. She brought new audiences to established brands, often through creative events such as the “sexy Santa” party, Eid fashion show and panel discussion on digital anxiety that she produced for Rosedale Center.

By the time Edwards was named Best Dressed by the alt-weekly City Pages, she’d become the slick protagonist of an Instagram account. Photographed as if for a fashion ad, Edwards sported statement hats. Oversized sunglasses. Layers of patterns and textures. There she was at an art opening. On a roof deck. Promoting skin-care treatments. Smooching her sweetie. Young women DMed her, “How do I become an influencer?”

In 2021, Edwards posted 182 of her wedding photos on Facebook. Mpls.St.Paul Magazine chronicled the three couture dresses she wore.

“I felt special,” Edwards said of her increasing follower count. “I felt unique. I was proud of myself that I’d hustled my way into this quote, unquote lifestyle.”

Falling apart

It may have looked like Edwards had it all. But she started to feel like it was all falling apart.

Edwards had a big vision, but because of how closely her persona was infused in her business, she found it difficult to scale. (Several scathing anonymous reviews popped up on the employment-intel site Glassdoor.) Her days involved ceaseless communication with a huge network of people. Social media felt like a vapid addiction and “constant beast you have to feed.” Edwards’ phone teemed with contacts — far more relationships than she could meaningfully tend. (How many, exactly? “Too many. Thousands.”)

Edwards felt spread too thin, yet obligated to respond to every request due to conditioning as a people pleaser. She’d be at yoga or Michaels and people she didn’t know would say hi, triggering her anxiety to perform a friendly interaction. While the attention was validating, she also feared all those eyes were judging. She wondered: Do people actually like her, or just her digital avatar?

At home, Edwards’ marriage was crumbling. All she wanted was to step off the hamster wheel and work through her issues. But since her personal life was integral to her public persona — Sarah Edwards TM, the personal brand — she put on a happy facade. Mired in loneliness and shame, Edwards started having panic attacks. “I didn’t want to be me anymore,” she recalled. “I didn’t want to be Sarah Edwards. I wanted to just escape and disappear. But I couldn’t because I didn’t want to let everyone down.”

Digital detox

Edwards finally found solace by turning inward and expressing herself through painting large, colorful abstracts. In 2023, she gathered a bunch of artists to join her in showing their work at Minneapolis’ Chambers Hotel.

Reflecting on the creative community she’s convened, Edwards says she appreciates how social media has enabled her to spotlight others whose work has been overlooked. That includes 77-year-old Saeteesh (“I have no first, last or middle name.”) of St. Paul, who credits Edwards’ decision to include her in a fashion show with launching her new modeling career. “Sarah is very open to listening to other people’s experiences,” Saeteesh said. “She’s so good at connecting people — that’s how she got where she is — and I got lucky enough to be one of those people.”

Sarah Edwards poses in front of her paintings displayed for a 2023 show at the Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis. (Provided by Sarah Edwards)

Edwards also sees value in her occasional unflattering social media posts, which have led others who are struggling to reach out. “If they can say, ‘Hey, this helped me feel less alone,’ I’m like, OK, I will continue to just put my dirty laundry out there.”

Now that she’s stepped away from the grind of running her agency and events, Edwards’ next chapter involves trying to figure out an identity that’s no longer based on workaholism and social media. “I’m anti-hustle culture, even though I’m, like, the poster child for hustle culture,” she said. “If anyone has ever been jealous of my life, please don’t be.”

Getting out of the social media game isn’t so easy, Edwards notes, if — like her — you don’t have enough savings to stop posting while retraining for another career. For many who aren’t wealthy, especially creative types, entrepreneurs and those in the nonprofit sphere, Edwards says, having a social media presence feels essential to financial viability. “Offline is the new luxury,” she said. “If you don’t have to be on social media, you’ve made it.”

At night, Edwards tucks her smartphone into a locked case that only opens after the timer expires. (She has a Barbie flip phone for emergencies and doesn’t give out the number.) She’s been posting less, which seems to be increasing followers’ curiosity — as if she’s left her audiences with a cliffhanger.

“It’s like I’m having this reality show that people are watching,” she said.

Rebooting

So what’s next for Edwards, as she prepares to enter her fourth decade? She’s working with local filmmaker Maribeth Romslo to develop a documentary titled “Connected Yet Alone,” exploring what a healthy relationship with social media might look like. “We’re all grappling and struggling with this sort of brave new world that didn’t really exist 20 years ago,” Romslo said. “What Sarah is hoping to do with this is show her vulnerability, show her journey and her growth and what she learns from this.”

Sarah Edwards, left, meets with her friend Terri Jackson for a dog walk outside the Lake Harriet Bandshell in Minneapolis. (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Edwards also hopes to create a new network for local creative types. One component is virtual: a digital platform to share portfolios, find work and connect, building on the way Edwards has long linked so many photographers, stylists and others.

The other piece is a space for gathering in person and creating — Edwards’ new studio is in the Kickernick Building in downtown Minneapolis — where she plans to host art classes and facilitate other creative collaborations.

Edwards says her previous efforts to garner digital attention were contributing to a problem she now hopes to help solve. “That’s why I’m on this quest right now,” she says. “Social media is not going anywhere, but we have to figure out how to have a healthier relationship with it. ... You can’t just be like, ‘Good luck kid! Hope you don’t ruin your brain.’ ”

Social media made her. Then it owned her.

Sarah Edwards, one of Minnesota’s early influencers, rebooted her life to help others find digital balance.

Having it all

Falling apart

Digital detox

Rebooting

Reader challenge:

about the writer

Rachel Hutton