Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/December 30, 2018 to January 5, 2019

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.

Don't forget to read the Annual Top 50 Report for 2018

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (December 30, 2018 to January 5, 2019)

Prepared with commentary by igordebraga

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

2000-19: Netflix do the bump

Blade Runner promised a very Japanese 2019 with flying cars, space colonies and artificial humans. Instead, we have a very Chinese (with shades of Korea; though on this report, it's very Indian, with three movies -#8, #13, #16 - and a recently deceased actor at #4) 2019, where instead of leaving the planet we trash it and escape into a virtual world populated with fake humans - at least we still have Rick Deckard. One of the top destinations in said digital landscape is Netflix, which along with that post-apocalyptic movie that keeps the top spot, viewers were also going after an interactive Black Mirror experience (#3) and a crime drama series (#9) - originally produced by Lifetime, which also contributes entries thanks to a recent miniseries about R. Kelly (#10, #14). And while on online media, a YouTuber did make a Rewind video that could go get the cool, get the cool shoeshine and be very liked for it (#22), unlike the site's own retrospective.

Regarding the world spinning too fast - to the point there's already another list of recently deceased (#17) and two dead guys! (#4, #19) - there are three women politicians (#7, #11, #21) who probably want to prevent things from getting worse by the time we repeat the message "Auld Lang Syne" (#20) - It's the music that we choose! Meanwhile, readers got caught up in the conflict between MMA fighters in the latest UFC event (#15) and keep themselves tethered to the days they've tried to lose, as there are a lot of repeating movie-related entries, though with a new one for a historical figure (#25) in a possible awards contender.

Anyway, if time's elimination, then we got nothing to lose. For the week of December 30, 2018 to January 5, 2019, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	About
1	Bird Box (film)	2,401,831	If not for Boxing Day, Bird Box would've spent ten days in a row as the most viewed Wikipedia article, showing lots of people wanted to know why everyone was talking about Netflix post-apocalyptic book adaptation. This included lots of memes, including people doing things while blindfolded (an integral part of the movie, to avoid beasts that when seen, drive people to madness and\or suicide) as a "Bird Box challenge". Anyway, in this writer's opinion, while Bird Box has its moments, you're better off watching A Quiet Place.
2	Bird Box	1,698,325
3	Black Mirror: Bandersnatch	1,160,378	Black Mirror returns not with another series, but an interactive movie that tries to be one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books - in fact, one such book is featured in the plot, as a computer programmer back in 1984 tries to make a game adaptation, only for him to lose his mind along the way (including seeing that familiar glyph on the left, which is a representation of branching paths). He might even receive a message reading "I am watching you on Netflix. I control your decisions", bringing the post-modernism all the way through.
4	Kader Khan	1,122,406	Among the Khans of Bollywood, this must be the one with a legacy as vast as Genghis Khan's empire: 300 acting credits and 200 writing ones! Afghan-born but holding both Indian and Canadian nationalities, Kader died on December 31, as his supranuclear palsy finally caught up to him.
5	Aquaman (film)	976,919	For being a less disappointing and more fun watch than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Atlantean superhero solo movie has now surpassed it as the most profitable DC Extended Universe movie, and its impressive $940 million worldwide means Aquaman is now in the top 50 that comprises our List of highest-grossing films - and who knows if it beats The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises to become the biggest moneymaker based on DC Comics? Of course much of its success can be attributed to the charismatic strongman in the lead role, that with just the December views became the 20th most viewed Wikipedia article of 2018.
6	Jason Momoa	945,661
7	Nancy Pelosi	853,556	After being elected for her 17th term (!) in Congress, Pelosi has earned a second term as Speaker of the House of Representatives, which makes her second in the line of succession.
8	Simmba	780,082	Ranveer Singh is ACP Sangram "Simmba" Bhalerao, a corrupt cop who after tragedy strikes is forced to find his place in the Circle of Life. The result has already outgrossed its two predecessors in the Singham franchise (which includes a cartoon! Must be Bollywood's own Rambo: The Force of Freedom).
9	You (TV series)	756,113	One and a half months after its season finale on Lifetime, You, a ten-episode book adaptation where Elizabeth Lail (pictured during her tenure as a Disney Princess) portrays the target of a New York bookstore manager's obsession, was released on Netflix. The streaming service has since picked up the show, which will receive a second season based on follow-up novel Hidden Bodies.
10	R. Kelly	720,354	Lifetime is airing docuseries Surviving R. Kelly, showing that the man responsible for romantic R&B tunes actually had a less than savory approach with women, many of whom appear on screen to denounce him for sexual assault. And to the surprise of some, streams for his work have raised on Spotify (who even temporarily removed Kelly's music given all the controversy he's raised) - hope people sought the less raunchy tracks such as "I Believe I Can Fly".
11	Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez	718,650	As if becoming the youngest congresswoman ever wasn't enough, Ocasio-Cortez is already making an impact, proposing a high income tax to fund a "Green New Deal" and becoming more popular from an attempt at shaming her.
12	Sandra Bullock	666,362	23 years after the internet ruined her life, Sandra Bullock has had a huge online hit with Bird Box (#1), leading fans to remember her storied film career to call out on newbies (some pretty ignorant).
13	K.G.F: Chapter 1	586,541	Another Indian movie, from Kannada cinema (sadly, no *ollywood nickname: instead, it's known as Chandanavana), where Yash (pictured) is a poor boy who is eventually hired to kill a big figure in the Kolar Gold Fields. It is already the highest grossing Kannada film, a fact that bodes very well for the impending second chapter.
14	UFC 232	583,037	The latest mixed martial arts event had something for the first time, two current female champions facing each other. And two compatriots no less, Brazilians Cris Cyborg (pictured) and Amanda Nunes, with the former losing her Featherweight championship belt after just 51 seconds of fighting.
15	Aaliyah	567,501	This R&B singer (who tragically died in a plane crash back in 2001) had her career launched by R. Kelly (#10), who produced and wrote the songs in her 1994 debut album. Its name, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, has now become very uncomfortable for those watching Surviving R. Kelly, which claims he had a sexual relationship with a still underage Aaliyah (her mother denied).
16	Zero (2018 film)	538,572	Bollywood makes a movie about a man with dwarfism (Shah Rukh Khan) facing both a love triangle where he's disputed by a highly talented scientist with cerebral palsy (Anushka Sharma, pictured) and an alcoholic film star (Katrina Kaif), and eventually the trials to join a mission to Mars. Oh India, you never cease to surprise us. In spite of being preceded by much fanfare, Zero has been deemed a huge disappointment, having failed to please critics or audiences, and seems like it will struggle to cover its 200 crore budget that makes it one of the most expensive Indian movies ever.
17	Deaths in 2019	532,924	New year, new list of the recently deceased. Better bring the toothless skull again, and wonder if it will "threepeat" as top article of the year.
18	Freddie Mercury	529,963	The king of Queen, who finished our 2018 report in 5th place, and whose biopic has earned a whopping $700 million worldwide and is already shaping up to earn some awards for Mercury's portrayer Rami Malek.
19	Bob Einstein	520,796	An Emmy-winning actor\comedian with a famous relative (older brother Albert Brooks, who for obvious reasons dropped the "Einstein"), Bob Einstein died at 76, shortly after a leukemia diagnosis.
20	Auld Lang Syne	512,380	The one inescapable song regarding the transition of years in the English-speaking world (in my country, it's this one).
21	Elizabeth Warren	511,864	A former law teacher and Secretary of the Treasury who is currently a Senator for Massachusetts, Mrs. Warren has announced she formed an exploratory committee to possibly run for President in 2020.
22	List of most-liked YouTube videos	478,115	YouTube Rewind 2018 topped the list of most-disliked YouTube videos in just one week for among other things, lacking YouTubers people actually knew such as PewDiePie (pictured). The man himself was among the dissers, and cut a "YouTube Rewind 2018 but it's actually good" that had the polar opposite reaction to the official thing: 7.36 million thumbs up, easily becoming the most liked non-music video ever (behind 52 such videos; though some of those, such as "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)" and "Gucci Gang", really stretch the definition of "music").
23	Lisa Bonet	441,402	Continued interest in our #6 also brings along his missus. Someday Commons needs to get a picture of her so we can ditch this one of her ex and their daughter!
24	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse	429,378	Spider-Man meets the alternate versions of himself, in this movie I'll finally watch on Thursday (just like last week my country got one of the productions it beat at the Golden Globes; speaking of that...).
25	Anne, Queen of Great Britain	425,368	The Favourite, a comedy-drama set in the court of Queen Anne, during the early 18th century, is one of those movies that months after hitting theaters, gets the general public's attention for awards recognition. Many of those accolades are coming for the monarch herself, or rather her portrayer, Olivia Colman (pictured), including a Golden Globe one day after the week covered by this Report.

Exclusions

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.
Exo (band) and BTS (band): the Billboard Social 50 might accept the EXO-Ls and the BTS Army checking the pages of these K-pop groups many times daily for their rankings, but we won't condone this gaming of the system.

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