South Africa's 10 Most Followed On Twitter | Thoughts On The List

After a conversation with a friend about a list compiled by some American about South Africa's hottest male celebrities based on their media coverage, I checked in on Twitter to see if the names on that list have changed. Not much has changed but I have a few thoughts on the list...

Firstly, let me point out the number of Twitter followers for the Top 10 Most Followed South African Twitter handles has improved considerably. Checking the list in real time, as in just before I wrote this article, Bonang Matheba was the most followed female in Mzansi with Casper Lee as the most followed person and of course male.

Caspar who?! more on him in a bit... the highest most recognizable name on the list is Trevor Noah at 5th place possibly thanks to his new found international fame but even Hollywood still had to settle for second best to sports as the other famous names on the list higher than Noah in 3rd and 4th place are cricketers Kevin Pietersen and AB de Villiers. 

The two most followed South Africans with an impressive 4 million combined are Cassper Lee at number 1 with 2 699 442 followers and Spud star Troye Sivan with 2 658 743. 

• Caspar is a British born vlogger who was raised in Knysna but now lives back in London as of 2014.  He started his self-titled YouTube channel in 2010 with garnered him over 4 million subscribers and over 250 million video views, and is the 165th most subscribed channel on the website; his second channel "morecaspar" has over 1 million subscribers and nearly 30 million video views. He also has over 2 million followers on Instagram. Thanks to his social media fame, the aspiring actor was cast in Spu 3 and was nominated at the 2015 Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards for the "UKs Favourite Vlogger"

• Troye is an actor, famous for being a lead in the comedy film Spud. He was born in South Africa but grew up in Australian. He has starred in films such the 2009 X-Men film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and most recently has starred as the titular character in the Spud film trilogy. Sivan also regularly makes YouTube videos, and as of 15 March 2015, has over 3.2 million subscribers and over 162 million total views. He is also a singer. His Ep titled TRXYE, peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200. In October 2014, Time named Sivan as one of the "25 Most Influential Teens of 2014".

So basically the two most followed 'South Africans' do not even live in South Africa nor are they known in this country. Interestingly, Pastor Chris also appears on the list at number 6. 

Unfortunately, controversial and outspoken DJ, Gareth Cliff has fallen off the Top 10 list. He is currently at number 11 with other notable names such as Minnie Dlamini and Dj Fresh also trailing below the Top 10 mark. 

The full list ;

1. Caspar Lee                                2 699 442
2. Troye Sivan                              2 658 743
3. Kevin Pietersen                        2 613 292
4. AB de Villiers                          2 436 085
5. Trevor Noah                             2 306 928
6. Pastor Chris                              1 362 888
7. News 24                                   1 206 091
8. Nelson Mandela                      1 114 627
9. Bonang Matheba                     1 073 648
10. Candice Swanepoel                 1 026 534