The minister of memes? Why Tito Mboweni is already a winner on social media

New finance minister Tito Mboweni may have dominated the social media search and trends lists yesterday but he's BEEN a social media favourite for years.

Tito replaced Nhlanhla Nene after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday that he had accepted Nene's resignation. Nene decided to resign from the post on Tuesday morning following a public outcry sparked by his public apology last week over his multiple meetings with the Gupta family at their private home.

Tito Mboweni, a former Reserve Bank governor and labour minister under late president Nelson Mandela, immediately became the most talked about person in the country after the announcement.

But just a few months ago he was trending for a different reason after he took to his Twitter account to share his experience eating East African chillies. His face, dripping with sweat, was quickly made into a meme and shared across the net.

He had just a few months earlier had a similar experience with Rwanda Chilli, leaving the streets in fits of laughter.

His Twitter page has been filled with snaps of himself on his travels and as he works in his new role, the streets will be hoping he takes more hilarious pictures to add to his meme collection.

While Tito has always been down for a laugh and joined in the banter he gets online, he slammed Black Twitter in an interview on Power FM just two months ago, calling users "uninformed and illiterate".

“You young people tell us that we have not done anything for 24 years. Unless if people want to be ahistorical, unless if they are driven by black Twitter, which is uninformed, mostly illiterate – I’m going to get into trouble for that."

He added that the Twitter brigade was "emotional" and reactionary. He said that they brought no substance but were always quick to fight or criticise.

He followed this up a month later by claiming there were "too many angry people" on the social media service.