Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/May 5 to 11, 2019

The Top 25 Report

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Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (May 5 to 11, 2019)[edit]

Prepared with commentary by A lad insane, Stormy clouds, and Igordebraga

← Last week's report – Next week's report →

Expectations (Not Particularly) Subverted[edit]

This week's report, as with the past few, is utterly dominated by the entertainment industry, which should hardly be surprising given the two gargantuan hits currently conquering the zeitgeist on screens big and small. Other entries include a vile serial killer and his biopic, an extremely exuberant and exclusive gala, and the latest member of House Windsor. Not an especially diverse iteration of the report, admittedly, but still an intriguing one.

For the week of May 5 to 11, 2019, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	About
1	Avengers: Endgame	4,400,303	Because Marvel fans just can't get enough of their favorite superheroes at the cinema, they have resorted to stalking Wikipedia, either to find out the current box office gross or, if they're like me, to read the plot so they don't have to actually watch it to understand the memes. They've also infiltrated several other articles featured on this list, seemingly competing with Game of Thrones for most related articles. None of them can compete with the British royal family though, setting the record at fifteen last year (though Marvel got close once).
2	Ted Bundy	4,321,338	One of the most infamous and heinous criminals of 20th century America, Ted Bundy has long captivated and caught the public attention courtesy of his charming charismatic demeanour, and the sheer horror of his crimes. As testament to this, with another week in excess of 4 million views, he is a likely lock for the year-end report some four decades after his incarceration, and three after his execution. He is the subject of #18, which thankfully does not end with Samuel L. Jackson telling him about the Unabomber and a team he's assembling.
3	List of highest-grossing films	3,735,837	Expect this list to retain its prominent position on future iterations of the report, as Earth's Mightiest Heroes chase down the phenomenal record set by Dances with Pandorans. At time of writing, the Russo brothers need in the environs of another $300 million in ticket receipts to become the first directors to steal James Cameron's throne since James Cameron, and it is shaping up to be a very tight race indeed, as Captain America et al will have to compete with a dog-loving assassin, everyone's favourite poorly CGI rendered YouTuber, and a blue flame-breathing lizard (not that one) in weeks to come.
4	Chernobyl disaster	1,487,216	Wikipedia is not immune to the driving forces of Reddit, and this entry shows that with a passion. This post on r/todayilearned inspired thousands of readers to flock to this article, as it perhaps in turn may have been inspired by the anniversary of the disaster a couple weeks ago. It may also be due to the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, which aired its first episode on May 6.
5	Game of Thrones (season 8)	1,448,829	The other fandom featuring heavily on this list hasn't made it as high in terms of rank, but with three entries overall and one in the top 5, they've certainly done a respectable job. In a year of finales, this one has fewer episodes than its predecessors, yet the incredible screen-writing and payoffs still evidently captivate a plethora of viewers, sending scores to its article.
6	List of Marvel Cinematic Universe films	1,330,540	See #1 and the rest of this tangled Marvel mess.
7	Met Gala	1,119,365	The annual fashion extravaganza took place in the Big Apple during the week, providing a reprieve for those not interested in superheroes or subversion of expectations. A glorious opportunity for grand larceny, the Gala is organized annually by Vogue, and this year the jewel of the New York social scene was themed around camp (#21). Notable guests at the event included Katy Perry, who dressed up as a chandelier (yeah, I don't get it either), and someone who used to be relevant on YouTube.
8	Game of Thrones	990,337	This will probably be on the list for a while.
9	Meghan, Duchess of Sussex	987,526	Last May, the wedding bells rang for Meghan and Prince Harry (#11), sending droves of royal-family watchers to their articles. This year, their marriage has borne fruit, with the announcement of a new royal youngling. Archie Mountbatten-Windsor (#25) is seventh in line to the throne- that may seem distant, but hey, it's closer to the throne than I'll ever be.
10	Cinco de Mayo	842,868	The Mexican victory against the French Empire at the 1862 Battle of Puebla was a great morale-booster for the soldiers and civilians, so although they ended up losing the war, the Mexicans made it a holiday. 120 years later, some American companies decided that a Mexican holiday would be great to drum up some beer sales, and so they did. Now the holiday is celebrated more in the United States than Mexico, with staples of the celebration including beer and guacamole. The beer didn't stop thousands of people from searching up on Wikipedia why exactly they were celebrating, though, bringing it in at the bottom of the top 10 on this list.
11	Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex	736,830	The newest royal father (#25). If he is to follow in the footsteps of his elder brother William, we can anticipate the arrival of a few more babies to the report in years to come.
12	Deaths in 2019	730,914	The ever-present morbidity of us all is, yet again, evident in the views of this article, fluctuating weekly depending on if any particularly well-known individuals joined the other side that week. This was a more-or-less average week.
13	Lucy Wills	690,776	Google homaged the researcher whose findings about prenatal anemia helped some innovations for preventive prenatal care. Love them or hate them, the repeated impact of Doodles on Wikipedia viewing patterns simply cannot be denied.
14	Chris Farley	675,600	Adam Sandler hosted Saturday Night Live and sung an ode to this late co-star on the show, with shout outs that thankfully included the line "IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!"
15	Robert Downey Jr.	671,039	The Hollywood superstar whose engrossing portrayal of Tony Stark started the MCU has long been a leading face of the franchise, and continues to capture the attention of the perusers of Wikipedia owing to his performance in Endgame (#1). His featuring in the report at this juncture is ... inevitable.
16	Spider-Man: Far From Home	575,883	Just some more Marvel fans, although this may not have been solely driven by Endgame; the second spectacular spoiler-ific trailer was released on Sunday, sending fans to go check out the latest wiki-news about the movie, including the enigmatic fish-bowl wearing magician Mysterio, portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal.
17	Mysterio	569,621
18	Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile	565,692	Netflix's newest streaming sensation controversially stars Troy Bolton as infamous serial killer Ted Bundy (#2). From the same director as the documentary from earlier in the year, the film somewhat takes it for granted that its audience is intimately aware of Bundy's crimes. Having seen it, I feel this assumption is a mistake, and leaves the casual audience lost - it doesn't help that, despite Efron's efforts, the film is extremely bland, shockingly boring and banal.
19	Billie Eilish	552,397	Propelled by the success of her first album, Eilish seems to have cornered the market on being weird and appealing to those who have rejected contemporary, conventional pop music. I can't say that I find what little of her music I have heard particularly great, but I simultaneously cannot deny that it has an audience. Consequently, it appears that she is set to be a firm fixture of the report, making one swell with nostalgia for the days when the repetitive blurbs had to be written for Freddie.
20	2019 UEFA Champions League Final	558,090	After a week in which two English clubs channelled the spirit of Istanbul to prove that all facets of British society are reluctant to leave Europe (not even to mention the other one), the final of the most prestigious competition in club football (sorry, Copa Libertadores) will be played in Madrid on June 1st, and will be contested between Spurs and Liverpool. The clubs have much history and prestige at this stage, having won the tournament a combined five times, and will doubtless captivate as England's Golden Boy goes toe-to-toe with the greatest player to ever grace a football pitch.
21	Camp (style)	547,073	What is old is new again, and what is dead may never die. Boom! Pow! Sock!
22	List of Game of Thrones episodes	541,942	You thought that Wikipedia's denizens had kind of forgotten about the HBO behemoth? Fear not.
23	Ramadan	540,092	Ramadan, as at least 540,092 people are aware, is the annual period of fasting observed by adherents of Islam, commemorating Muhammad's first revelation. During the month-long event, Muslims are not allowed to eat anything between dawn and dusk each day. A gruelling undertaking, to be sure, but a fundamental one given its status as a pillar of the faith, and one that I have been informed is immensely satisfying come Eid al-Fitr.
24	Marvel Cinematic Universe	539,869	Perhaps this entry was propelled by non-fans desperately trying to figure out who is who and why everyone was talking about things and what happened in the other movies and what other movies there were. Or maybe it was just more super-fans. Probably the super-fans, to be honest.
25	Archie Mountbatten-Windsor	501,682	The Anglo-American royals have a baby, and given his paternal lineage, naming him after a famous fictional ginger is a good pre-emptive move. I suppose someone else had already claimed Tintin.

Exclusions[edit]

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.

Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.