Whether casually holding forth in ballcap and T-shirt or dishing celebrity gossip as his drag alter ego Funky Dineva, Quentin Latham has become a YouTube go-to for pop-culture enthusiasts. Latham's journey on the platform began back in 2009, "before the word Youtuber started," as he says. For the past decade, he's grown his brand via his witty and unabashed recaps of reality-TV franchises and commentary on pop culture and politics. "My ability to talk about anything from politics to socioeconomic issues to religion to hip-hop culture has definitely separated me from the rest," he tells New Times. "The reason why I win on YouTube is because I'm smart." The Florida State University alumnus has certainly cracked the code to getting the algorithm gods on his side —to the tune of more than 360,000 subscribers. But what keeps subscribers coming back is his candidness about his identity as a gay black man. "Being a queer black man from Miami, one of the biggest hurdles is hearing, 'You're a faggot,'" he says. "It's something I truly had to overcome, because it's something I've heard about myself since the second grade. At a certain point in this business, you realize: I'm more than that and my sexuality doesn't define me." These days he cohosts Fox Soul's YouTube show Tea-G-I-F on Wednesdays and Fridays, sharing hot takes on current events and entertainment news. The Carol City native says he's proud to represent the city that's influenced his persona on YouTube and TV. "Atlanta jumpstarted my career— I did ten years in Atlanta," he says. "But one thing that's always bothered me was I became Funky Dineva in Atlanta but what people don't realize is all this personality comes from Carol City, baby." In the words of Funky Dineva: We see you, Nessa girl!

In a city where excess abounds, lifestyle influencer Alexia Frith, who goes by KandidKinks on social media, has cultivated a platform that prioritizes authenticity over popularity. A natural-hair YouTuber who began making videos in 2015 to educate black women how to care for their 4C natural hair, Frith wanted to create tutorials for underrepresented women. "When I started making videos, I didn't see people who looked like me in terms of my texture and skin tone on a large scale," she says. Now she has 60,000 subscribers on YouTube and 25,000 followers on Instagram. Her social media is interspersed with pop-culture commentary and conversations that reflect her audience. In 2018, she expanded those conversations offline, founding South Florida Naturals, a series of meetups and workshops. "I feel like in Miami specifically we didn't have a lot of natural hair spaces or natural hair events," she explains. "It's like a sisterhood and I've made great friends and connections." Despite her status as a source of beauty hacks for women who feel left out of hair and makeup campaigns, she refuses to be undermined by those who seek to pigeonhole her. "I'm not just hair, and no one is just their physical appearance. I felt like if I'm here and I have opinions and thoughts as a black woman, I know my audience has those same feelings," she says. "I love to create that safe space for people that have similar experiences and similar life stories."

Satire is often the sincerest form of endearment one can show for their hometown, and that's exactly the kind of love up-and-coming TikToker Stephanie Veloso shows for Miami. Her "What Your Miami Neighborhood Says About You" series, for example, takes aim at "twice-divorced real estate investors" from Coral Gables looking to "diversify [their] sugar baby portfolio," while her Miami condo series at once entertains and informs as she strides past the glossy façades of our town's high-rises to expose their hilarious (and sometimes grotesque) reputations. Veloso, whose background is Brazilian-American, grew up in Miami and wants to help us all appreciate the Magic City as more than just "the land of blow and beaches," as she once delicately put it. This she accomplishes by talking shit. "It's like when you make fun of your family — only you can talk shit about them," she elaborates. "It has to be one of us. I think I do it with love, and people can relate to it if they're from here." Veloso's schtick is still evolving and her following is still nascent — climb aboard now so you can tell your friends you knew her when.

Khaled Mohamed Khaled has earned many titles. Superstar DJ. Hip-hop mogul. Soul fast food purveyor. Weight Watchers ambassador. Asahd's father. But the loftiest crown he wears is Miami's lord of the memes. A marketing mastermind, Khaled was among the first rap artists to understand the importance of having an outsize social-media presence, one in which his visage is constantly going viral with a simple facial expression. There are at least a dozen DJ Khaled memes floating around the Internet, endlessly reimagined and reshared. An April 2021 entry is a good example. It's a video clip of Khaled sitting at outdoors in Jamaica, swirling a goblet filled with a chartreuse liquid. Suddenly, he stands up, his face a contortion of surprise and anger. The short reel has been reposted and reshared hundreds of times on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. You know the meme is certified because the @onlyindade bros reposted it as an interpretation of "that moment you realize your neighbor is trying to steal your mangoes from your tree!" Others saw it as "when you're out with your girl and see your wife with another man," "me remembering I forgot to cancel my free trial," and "me realizing midway through my meal that I can't smell or taste anything."