The Top 25 Report
Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (December 20 to 26, 2015)
edit← Last week's report – Next week's report →
Summary: When George Lucas created Star Wars, he deliberately drew on archetypal mythic motifs espoused by his friend, mythologist Joseph Campbell, to create, as he called it, a "modern mythology" that would make those values accessible to a new generation. Looking at this week's list, one has to wonder if he succeeded too well. Christmas, oddly, has never been particularly popular on Wikipedia; always the bridesmaid to the more exotic (to Americans) Boxing Day. But given the layers upon layers of mythology that holiday has built up over the millennia, it is somewhat striking to see it so thoroughly stampeded by a mythos barely four decades old. One wonders what we will be celebrating in 2000 years time. Star Wars mania no doubt contributed to this list having the highest entry point seen so far. In other news, Bollywood roared back, as the box office battle between winter hits Bajirao Mastani and Dilwale spurred massive interest not only in the films themselves but in the historical figures featured therein. And finally, there is, of course, comedian Steve Harvey's monumental flub at this year's Miss Universe pageant, which sparked what I can only describe as a peculiar level of interest among Wikipedia users.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of December 20 to 26, 2015, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Star Wars: The Force Awakens 
4,905,073 
It is hard to think of any other pop culture franchise that has had such a long-lasting and pervasive effect as Star Wars. Over 38 years after the release of the first film in 1977, the pop culture domination that the franchise has enjoyed is undeniable, now again reinforced by the debut of the latest film. Many people who saw the first film as teenagers could well be grandparents by now. For example, the stories of Sherlock Holmes appeared over a forty-year period as well (1887-1927), and have generated a large legacy, but cannot compete with the powers of our mass media age. This is already the article's tenth appearance on the Top 25 in 2015. The Force Awakens has already grossed $526 million worldwide in its opening weekend, barely beating the record of $524 million set by Jurassic World earlier this year. The film's U.S. opening of $245 million easily beat the $209 million which Jurassic World racked up, and it has since gone on to become the fastest film to reach $1 billion in earnings worldwide. The movie has also received very good reviews, though it should be kept in mind that many reviewers in 2015 probably saw the first film as children, creating a powerful force of nostalgia. 2 Star Wars 
2,703,355 See #1 3 Dilwale (2015 film) 
1,241,440 
This Indian film, including Kajol (pictured) among its starring actors, debuted on December 18. Dilwale grossed around ₹1.5 billion (US$22 million) worldwide in its opening weekend, the third highest of the year for an Indian film, and has since gone on to earn ₹2.74 billion ($41.4 million) to date. 4 Daisy Ridley
1,227,591 
The English actress stars in #1 in the role of Rey. 5 Pia Wurtzbach
1,224,259 
The Filipino recipient of this year's Miss Universe title was also an unwitting actor in what must rank retrospectively the most toe-curling five-minute video of the year, as comedian Steve Harvey announced her rival Miss Colombia as the winner, walked offstage for a seemingly interminable length of time, allowing her to pose graciously to the cameras and flash her radiant ivories in polished gratitude, only for him to return and announce that he had erred, that she was, in fact, the first runner up, and that Ms Wurzbach was in fact the true winner. You'd think it would be poor Miss Colombia, rather than the eventual winner, who would gain the most views but if I had to guess why Ms Wurtzbach won over people's hearts, it was the priceless play of expressions on her face as the truth was revealed. 6 'Tis the Season disambig 1,220,089 
For the second year in a row, a Google Doodle has sent a horde of people to a disambig, and this one has seen numbers shoot up 70%. 7 Miss Universe 2015
1,123,111 Beauty pageants don't really figure much into the Top 25 Report; in fact the only other time one did was in September 2013, when Nina Davuluri, the first Indian American Miss America, became the recipient of racist tweets from people simultaneously nasty and stupid enough to assume that someone who was Arab, Muslim and immigrant must be a terrorist; even if, as in her case, she was neither an Arab, nor a Muslim, nor an immigrant. This week's inclusion was perhaps less infuriating, though it did spark a surprising amount of interest, not only on Wikipedia but across the Internet, as Google searches doubled over previous years. 8 Bajirao I
1,036,734 
This Peshwa (Prime Minister) of the Indian Maratha Empire became a topic of interest to Indian English speakers after Bajirao Mastani (see below), a drama documenting his doomed love for his second wife, prohibited due to her Muslim heritage, became an end-of-year hit. 9 Bajirao Mastani (film)
499,156 
This Indian historical drama starring Ranveer Singh (pictured at left) was released on December 18. It the fifth-best opening of the year for an Indian film, though behind Dilwale (2015 film). The Indian press are currently depicting the two films in a box office battle. 10 Mastani
880,929 
The second wife of Bajirao I (see #8) and, according to legend, such a focus of his love that it ultimately disrupted the tangle of alliances that secured his family's power and safety. 11 Göran Kropp
874,143 
As learned in a Reddit thread this week, in 1996 this Swedish adventurer cycled from his homeland to Nepal, climbed Mount Everest alone without oxygen, and then cycled back to Sweden. 12 The Revenant (2015 film)
850,458 
A western thriller movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio (pictured), The Revenant had a Los Angeles debut on December 16; it will expand into a wide release in early January 2016. 13 Star Wars (film) 
808,903 
See #1. The first movie in the series, released on May 25, 1977 in only about 30 movie theaters. 14 Boxing Day
806,356 
And, just like last year and the year before that, the most queried element of the holiday season is not Christmas, but its less-celebrated addendum. Perhaps Americans remain puzzled over why their Commonwealth cousins get an extra day of Christmas each year, and what on Earth the Nativity has to do with pugilism (to be fair, no one really knows how Boxing Day got its name, and any stories you hear are pretty much stabs in the dark). 15 Kylo Ren
776,676 
The black-masked apprentice Sith Lord is the main villain of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, played by Adam Driver (see below). 16 Adam Driver
775,776 The American actor star in #1 in the villain's role of Kylo Ren. 17 Carrie Fisher
745,081 
The actress who played Princess Leia in the first three Star Wars films reprises her role in #1. 18 Miss Universe Unassessed 731,473 See #5 and #7. 19 Harrison Ford
693,925 
Harrison Ford once claimed he had little interest in reprising his role as Han Solo, but with a little encouragement (and $25 million plus a percentage of the back-end) he did, and thankfully so, because it produced his best-reviewed performance in years. 20 Christmas
677,216 
This editor wishes his readers a happy post-Christmas, and hopes they didn't needlessly indulge as much as he did. 21 Mark Hamill
676,622 
The actor who played Luke Skywalker in the first three Star Wars films reprises his role in #1. 22 Star Wars sequel trilogy
669,203 This article refers to the third film trilogy in the Star Wars franchise, of which #1 is the first film made, but the fourth in plot order. Though actually pretty simple, the order issues have created worldwide confusion since the late 1970s. 23 Steven Avery
662,435 
The Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer, released on December 20, profiled the horrifying and perplexing case of this Wisconsin man who, after being exonerated for sexual assault and attempted murder, was found guilty of the murder of a journalist. Was this a valid conviction, or an attempt to stop his civil suit against the local authorities? 24 Steve Harvey
660,099 
Before this week, this American comedian and talk show host was probably best known as the host of Family Feud; now he's also known as the guy who screwed up Miss Universe. At least for as long as our notoriously amnesiac pop culture can remember it. 25 Joy (film)
620,980 
The yet-to-be-released film reunites Jennifer Lawrence (pictured), with her director and costars from The Silver Linings Playbook to tell the story of Joy Mangano, the inventor of the Miracle Mop and Huggable Hangars. The film had its première in New York City on December 13 and was released nationwide on Christmas Day.
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 also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (~2% or less) or almost all mobile views (~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.