Danielle Walter, the 'Carrie Bradshaw of San Francisco,' has gained millions of followers for her dating advice
Danielle Walter
On Sept. 9, 2025, content creator Danielle Walter shared an Instagram post that shocked her over 1 million Instagram followers.
Alongside a picture of herself in a striking red dress and holding a bouquet of lush pink flowers posted to her Instagram, Walter wrote, "Officially a girlfriend 💘."
For any other young woman making strides in an impressive ever-growing career as a content creator, the announcement would have been quite unremarkable — a personal milestone shared casually amid countless other more important career and content updates.
However, Walter's relationship status carried a bit more weight for her online community.
For years — since 2021, when she first began posting her life online — Walter had invited her followers into the more vulnerable corners of her life, beginning with her first viral video chronicling musings on things she wished she had known in her 20s.
Instantly, Walter's side hobby — posting on social media as a fun creative outlet — one she had initially developed in the wake of a painful breakup, ballooned into something entirely unfathomable. By the end of the weekend after posting the video, Walter's follower count had multiplied exponentially — going from about 200 to 130,000.
Danielle Walter
Walter admits to PEOPLE that when things first took off she had "no idea how to do social media."
"It just seemed like I was making some sort of impact, which was a bonus to seeking out something to do creatively," she shares. Her advice seemed to be "helping people" she says — which only made her more inclined to continue.
"And then I started dating and I thought this would be a very entertaining and helpful sort of series to follow: someone in the trenches of dating, doing it and sort of going along with them and seeing how dates went or getting ready for them," Walter says of a realization of where she should take her content.
It clicked.
Today, Walter boasts nearly 2 million followers across her TikTok and Instagram pages. She's even shouldered the weighty moniker "The Carrie Bradshaw of San Francisco" — as her dating advice videos were reminiscent of the fictional, New York City columnist from the beloved late '90s and early 2000s show Sex and the City.
"We look at views as completely out of perspective. A thousand views means it's been viewed a thousand times. And so if you think about a million views, that's incredible and the chances are that it entertained someone, it helped someone and inspired someone," she shares, of what it was like to watch her career blossom.
The milestones came in droves. She was even able to quit her job in tech sales as her platform grew.
"The reality that I could do something that I love like this and make a living off of it was a big moment for me personally," she says.
Danielle Walter
However, Walter also admits that one of her ultimate goal in posting her dating life was to find love, or at the very least find "someone."
"Which I joke about it, but I would hate to be the girl that has to post dating content for 10 years," she laughs. "But I went into it with the attitude of, if nothing else, it's a good story to tell. So if it doesn't work out, it's going to benefit someone else."
Around June 2025, Walter's goal began to come to fruition when she met her now boyfriend Lucas Alcantra at the gym.
Walter recounts seeing him out of the corner of her eye and thinking he looked "very different" than a "typical San Francisco guy," but on the first day she saw him, nothing happened. However, the next time she saw him, Walter says she locked eyes with him for just a little "longer than comfortable" — one of her dating tips — and Alcantra asked for her number.
Toward the beginning, Walter was posting in real time about her budding relationship — including her official girlfriend status announcement in that Sept. 9 post.
Reactions to Walter's announcement were mixed — to say the least — something she chalks up as being part "mourning" of her no longer posting dating content, but on a deeper level, a sort of confusion from her viewers.
"I think what we see typically online is people keep new relationships close to chest until a really long time into the relationship," she explains. "And so what I did differently kind of bring the audience along sooner than that and it can be a bit shocking."
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Danielle Walter
Following that announcement, Walter took a break from posting the sort of regular content that her followers had come to know her for. But, she came back in a big way on Dec. 11, when she posted part one of a episode installment "docuseries" titled "Where have I been."
The decision sparked an immediate Internet discourse.
All the while, individuals had been offering up opinions on her relationship with Lucas — especially their thoughts on the timeline of their relationship. Her initial relationship status update had prompted comments ranging from surprised to supportive to skeptical to downright mean. It caused Walter to reassess her relationship with the Internet.
"I knew that I wanted to catch the audience up with what had happened," Walter says of finally deciding to comprehensively introduce Lucas to her followers. And, since social media is her job, she had her audience in mind.
"I thought short form, binge-able episodic content is the future of social media," she says. "I wanted to do something really creative and try something new with my content and see how I liked it, how it landed, what that would be like. I also wanted to challenge myself creatively in the sense of using equipment that I had never used before."
As noise surrounding her docuseries grew, Walter maintains that there were a few things that helped her to carry on amid the hubbub.
The first? Her faith, which she has spoken about at length online. "Every time something happens, it's what I go back to."
"The other thing too that was such an indicator of him being my person is anytime the Internet gets very noisy and possibly unkind, Lucas is actually the one that grounds me and is reassuring even if he is experiencing similar feedback or criticism," she says.
Also, more practically, Walter's DMs are off.
"I don't think any human is meant to receive so many inputs, even if they're positive … I don't think my brain or anyone's brain is equipped to be able to handle that," she says. "But for me, just as a mental safety, I can't be in my own comments."
It doesn't mean she doesn't miss connecting with her viewers in that way — in fact, she misses it "so much." But, for her, it just isn't sustainable at the current moment.
Danielle Walter
So, what's next for the girl who gained fame for her journey to finding love now that that she's in a relationship?
"It's just sort of an exciting new chapter because there's so much possibility that can happen. We can go in a lot of different directions and I think what is reassuring to me is I haven't just done one thing online," she adds.
"I've done the big sister advice and things I wish I knew, and that's more of things that I've learned in the past, bringing them forward to the present," Walter continues.
Since she's done it before, she knows she can do it again. "I think in this interim what I want to do is just share my life for the people who are interested and we'll figure it out together."
And, this time around, it already is slightly different, as she has Lucas by her side.
"He's very the most supportive person I could ever have as a partner," she says. "And so usually it's me telling him what my ideas are or creative inspiration and him just being very, very supportive."
She hints that there is a possibility for content with him.
"I thought I wanted someone that was just sort of okay and understood what I did, but not necessarily on camera or anything past that. And he's past supportive. He thinks that what I do is incredible and that's really, I think for where I'm at in life and where my career is going, what I need as a partner."
As for what she wishes she had known all those years ago when she started posting her life online?
"You can have an idea and put it together and have it land for you as the creative that lands in a completely different way for the viewer. And it's something that as a creative, you learn by doing. But if I could give myself anything a year ago, two years ago, even when I started, it would be the ability to have both perspectives and just something that I'm learning right now."
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