Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/April 4 to 10, 2021

The Top 25 Report

This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous.
Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 4 to 10, 2021)[edit]

Prepared with commentary by Kingsif, TheConflux, Igordebraga

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It's another one of those weeks where the British royal family dominates, and for a sad reason, given the British royal consort died a few months short of completing 100 years. Though he couldn't take the top spot from another celebrity who passed away the same day as him, rapper DMX, capping off a tragic life and even worse final week, spent in a vegetative state.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	DMX (rapper)	6,191,810	How sad that the rapper responsible for high-energy tracks such as "X Gon' Give It to Ya" had a life that was far from uplifting. Dark Man X, born Earl Simmons, was repeatedly arrested, had to pay for 15 (!) child supports, filed three times for bankruptcy, and struggled with drug addiction, ultimately leading to an overdose that led to hospitalization, and one week in a vegetative state before dying of multiple organ failure at the age of 50. Due to the amount of news coverage his death received compared to #2, it's perhaps slightly surprising that he topped the list, though the margin between the top two finishers this week is under 10%, substantially smaller than usual.
2	Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh	5,683,996	The British Royal Family appearing on this list and it's nothing to do with The Crown or Meghan? The Grand Old Duke of Edinburgh passed away on April 9, two months before his hundredth birthday. Born in Greece, in line to a few non-British royal families, Philip was the definition of duty for over 70 years; he put aside his naval career to become what one could unkindly term the world's most professional house-husband. He worked to make his wife's job as fruitful as possible while standing, literally, in her shadow for longer than most people are alive. Besides standing loyal to the crown, he was a keen pilot, equestrian, and patron of around 800 charities. He founded an award to encourage young people's personal development, completed by millions world-round, and perhaps represented one of the last truly British institutions. After stepping back in his old age, Philip spent his retirement at the family's Sandringham country estate but, to cut down on travel during pandemic lockdowns, returned to Windsor last year to keep the Queen company: consummate in his role to the end, this is where he died on Friday morning. We'd usually make some joke about gaining sympathy for the royals after that interview, but feel we should extend sympathy to all the people of the Commonwealth, all two-and-a-half billion of them touched (whether they like it or not...) by Philip's endeavours to prevent the monarchy from becoming a practice in obsolescence by, among other things, embarking on countless (no, wait, over 22 thousand) official visits over the years.
3	Elizabeth II	2,933,732
4	Godzilla vs. Kong	1,510,445	In North America, movie theaters reopened on April 2. But this most recent installation of titans fighting was released digitally several days earlier and still attracted in-person, socially-distanced, crowds, showing the film industry to be alive and healthy after its little pandemic coma.
5	Charles Sobhraj	1,475,005	And back to the royals! Charles... wait, this is a different Charles? OK. Sobhraj is a French serial killer recently profiled in a Netflix series (#20), in which he is portrayed by Tahar Rahim (pictured).
6	Charles, Prince of Wales	1,152,916	So this is him? Eldest son Charlie decided to forgo "stay local" pandemic orders to drive from ... somewhere in England ... to his parents' castle on the day his father (#2) died. He's now inherited the title Duke of Edinburgh, while brother Edward (#18) takes over the recently-deceased Duke's appointments.
7	Deaths in 2021	1,025,689	Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
8	Ernest Hemingway	1,018,728	Ken Burns made a PBS mini-series about the writer's life that aired across three nights this week, Hemingway.
9	Paul Ritter (actor)	941,048	The British have beloved character actors, too, and this one recently died. Possibly best-known for TV roles in Friday Night Dinner, Cold Feet and Chernobyl (which thankfully hasn't come back for a 1000th week or something on this list), he was also a Tony- and Olivier- nominated stage actor.
10	WrestleMania 37	810,868	I always wonder why wrestling articles get so many views...
11	Phillip Adams (American football)	785,044	This Phillip death is a former NFL player (pictured, left) who went on a spree shooting before killing himself. Which is about as opposite to the other Philip as you can get.
12	The Falcon and the Winter Soldier	757,714	Well I'm not caught up, but this is the new Marvel Disney+ show about not-Captain America 1 and not-Captain America 2 fighting fake-Captain America 3, I think. It's like a TV show of the Captain America movies, which is about what we all expected.
13	George VI	749,846	The father of #3, to whom #2 was aide-de-camp until his death in 1952, seeing #2 ascend to consort for the next... many, many, years.
14	Princess Alice of Battenberg	684,481	The mother of #2 had an equally interesting life. Think Nazis and nuns but not Sound of Music.
15	Matt Gaetz	641,446	This congressman from Florida continues to be under investigation by the Justice Department as to whether or not he misused campaign funds and engaged in sex trafficking, with reports that Gaetz asked for a presidential pardon in the final days of Trump's tenure.
16	Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark	614,745	Which Prince Andrew is this one? Father of #2. Who knows why 70,000 people cared more about his mother than father (maybe it was the asylum), but here we are. Suddenly the Americans learn that the grand patriarch of the royal family isn't British at all, but German ("Battenberg"), Greek ("of Greece"), and Danish ("and Denmark"). Also, two of those are delicious desserts and now I'm hungry.
17	Anne, Princess Royal	539,648	Other children, and once-daughter-in-law, of #2 and #3. Looking at Top 25 history, approximately everyone in the world has read these articles now.
18	Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex	536,262
19	Diana, Princess of Wales	522,696
20	The Serpent (TV series)	515,587	Netflix released worldwide this BBC One show about a serial killer (#5, played by Tahar Rahim) hailing from current day Vietnam - the title is one of his sobriquets, alongside the Bikini Killer and the Splitting Killer - who preyed on Hippie trail tourists, and sold their stuff alongside his girlfriend (played by Jenna Coleman, who fitting to all those royals, once was #2 and #3's great-grandmother).
21	Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother	504,308	Relatives more exclusively of #3, now (though, well, see above). Elizabeth, Queen Mother had the most recent royal ceremonial funeral, back at the start of the century, after she lived to over 100 (spending half of it as a widow). Margaret, sister of #3, died shortly before her mother in 2002.
22	Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon	479,423
23	Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball	470,260	In the American college sport people around the world actually care about, basketball - whose playoffs have the fun nickname "March Madness" - Gonzaga actually lost the final to Baylor, but since they would have otherwise had a perfect season, they clearly generated more interest.
24	Death and funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh	469,471	Well, #2 wound up having reason to not ask for anything big in his centennial. The military funeral is scheduled for the 17th, and subject to COVID-19 restrictions.
25	Prince Andrew, Duke of York	414,830	Finishing off, the one son of #2 and #3 that earned the most controversy in his lifetime. He kept off the list at #26... Prince Philip Movement, a cargo cult in Vanuatu that believed in the Duke of Edinburgh's divinity!

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.