Meet the team behind Only In Dade, the social media account that has Miami hooked

A truck is parked on the side of the road, two men are fighting. One is waving a construction shovel around. The other defends himself with a skateboard. A witness to this scene warns in Spanish: “You’re going to ruin your life, bro...” and comments to his companion: “If he hits him with that shovel, I’ll f---- him up.”

It’s just another day in Miami as you scroll through Only In Dade, a social media account on Instagram and Facebook that shares the highlights (and lowlights) of life in Miami: the chaos of traffic, the road rage, and the daily weirdness and wildness that can only be witnessed in the streets of our crazy town.

Sometimes it’s a wild animal crossing the street; a crocodile waiting patiently at the door of a house; a guy riding a scooter on the expressway, unbothered by the traffic; a man walking into an office building with a macaw perched on his shoulder.

Only In Dade has 1.3 million followers on Instagram and 326,000 on Facebook, making it a perfect qualifier for the Herald’s 305 Influencers series. Only in Dade self describes as “citizen journalism” and presents “The good, the bad and the funny,” according to its profile page.

El Nuevo Herald went to interview the team behind Only In Dade at their office on Bird Road. We were greeted by an energetic group that works in a colorful space decorated with a mural with flamingos, roosters, a Pepe Billete doll and other ephemera that symbolize Miami.

We spoke with Emilio Estefan who, with his eye for production, saw the potential in the platform and became co-owner of Only in Dade, and with Lenny Carter, its founder and CEO.

The best ideas sometimes emerge over a drink

Like so many things in Miami, the name came from a bar joke. “We were at a Sports Grill and something popped off and I said, ‘Oye, that only happens in Dade.’ And that’s how the name began,” said Carter, the Cuban-American businessman who started the site as a meme and Facebook page in 2013.

Then they began to publish “user-generated content” to their Instagram stories, with the help of people who tagged them, Carter said. Today they receive 300-400 videos daily, and they do a fact-checking process to choose what they publish.

“When a video comes to us, we get multiple angles to know what is happening in real-time. We contact them,” Carter said, noting that sometimes it is a significant event in the county or an accident, like the recent crash of a fire rescue helicopter in Broward on Aug. 28, in which two people died.

“We received about 10 videos, with five different angles of the helicopter,” said Carter. He said that sometimes they can make mistakes, but that 95% of their content is accurate.

Going viral

The first viral video was of someone roasting a pig on a truck in the middle of the street.

“They stopped and started roasting a pig and then handed the actual pig to the client,” Carter said of the video they shared in 2017 that got millions of views.

“The video with the greatest impact was when COVID-19 arrived in 2020. There was a case at the Kendall Regional Hospital and we very credible information. We put it out there and we got a lot of backlash from it, but it ended up being true,” Carter said.

Only in Miami’s audience wants a break from bad news, he said. “If they have 15 minutes to laugh, that’s what they dedicate to us, and that’s how we receive it,” Carter said. Since the content is user generated, they don’t present opinions or prejudices, they stay neutral, he said.

The Only in Dade team is like “a dysfunctional family” that works in a fun environment and yet is aware that they have a great responsibility.

“We receive a lot of uncensored videos. We stay away from shaming the homeless. We get a lot of that, believe it or not. You don’t know how many people would like to walk around the city naked,” he says.

They also screen out videos of animal cruelty and videos that contain racial slurs.

A godfather like Emilio Estefan

In a room with tables decorated with Alvarez Guedes albums and photos of Walter Mercado, Emilio Estefan was waiting to tell us how he became interested in Only in Dade and decided to support it.

“For me it is something normal. Those of us who are in production are always looking at the future of technology, the evolution of the market,” said Estefan, who viewed Only in Dade as a means to reach “a generation that spends all day on the phone.”

“People are interested in seeing what’s more real,” he said, noting that social media has “the courage” to ask questions that perhaps aren’t asked in traditional media like television.

At the same time, he recognizes streaming freedom for creators, who don’t have to depend on one person in order to make it, something he would have liked when he was starting out and the big labels told him to change his name and style of music.

Seeing Carter and his team’s passion for Miami, “a unique city,” Estefan decided to bet on Only in Dade. He envisions producing more digital content, like a segment dedicated to Miami Beach called Live from Ocean Drive.

“I want to leave a legacy. It makes me proud that a person says that we fight for them so that they can continue to be authentic ,” Estefan said.