Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/February 19 to 25, 2017

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Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga

For the week of February 19 to February 25, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Milo Yiannopoulos	1,392,332	It's been said that the internet does not forget, and British journalist Yiannopoulos, once described as an "internet supervillain", found it the hard way: YouTube interviews where he defended relationships between older men and younger boys were posted just before a speech he would deliver at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The invitation was cancelled, as was a deal to publish Yiannopoulos' autobiography, and he also resigned from Breitbart News.
2	Get Out (film)	1,018,045	Jordan Peele's directorial debut, the satirical horror movie received glowing reviews and debuted atop the US box office.
3	Deaths in 2017	713,718	Wikipedia readers continue to keep an eye on the list of those no longer with us.
4	Donald Trump	699,891	Trump released a new memo that sets the policy for the deportation of undocumented migrants accused of any crime. Needless to say, reaction was overwhelmingly negative.
5	H. R. McMaster	696,234	Lieutenant general McMaster was named by Donald Trump to serve as his National Security Advisor.
6	Mary (elephant)	691,019	Reddit learned a whole new meaning for the phrase "hung like an elephant", as they read about this pachyderm that was hanged in Tennessee after causing the death of her trainer.
7	VX (nerve agent)	678,644	The chemical weapon featured in the 1996 action film The Rock is sadly a real substance, and was used to murder Kim Jong-nam (#18), half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
8	O. J. Simpson	589,735	The former American footballer and current felon was the subject of O.J.: Made in America, broadcast on ESPN and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
9	Logan (film)	569,480	The 10th movie associated with the X-Men and the final appearance for Hugh Jackman (pictured) as Wolverine, was set to hit theaters in March.
10	TRAPPIST-1	536,487	NASA and the European Southern Observatory announced the discovery of four new Earth-like planets in the Goldilocks zone of this dwarf star, making for a total of seven potentially habitable planets in this system.
11	DeMarcus Cousins	482,893	The basketball player was traded from the Sacramento Kings to the New Orleans Pelicans. Both teams were mostly out of postseason contention, but pairing Cousins with fellow All-Star\Olympic gold medallist Anthony Davis certainly raises his hopes to finally qualify for the playoffs in 2018, after 8 years in the league.
12	Alan Colmes	478,886	The Fox News liberal commentator died of a lymphoma on February 23.
13	This Is Us (TV series)	459,074	The NBC comedy drama, currently closing its inaugural season, saw a popularity spike that week, coinciding with it being chosen as the Best Episodic Drama in the Writers Guild of America Award.
14	Ida Lewis	434,958	A Google Doodle commemorated the 175th birthday of this American lighthouse keeper, noted for her heroism in rescuing people from the seas.
15	John Wick: Chapter 2	432,770	Keanu Reeves-starring actioner John Wick came out of nowhere three years ago to wow critics and eventually gain a fervent following, enough to greenlight a sequel, which in just 11 days has already outgrossed its predecessor by a fair margin.
16	Dihydrogen monoxide hoax	424,667	Reddit strikes again! This time they remembered how in 1997 a 14 year old was able to get 43 out of 50 of his classmates to vote to ban "Dihydrogen Monoxide" for his science fair project. Unlike the "alternative facts" coined two decades later, it was true facts leading the ignorant public to false conclusions: while DHMO is undeniably a dangerous substance that kills in small or big amounts, specially when it enters the lungs, the dangerous-sounding name is actually a fancy way of spelling "H₂O", better known as water.
17	Buddhas of Bamiyan	418,004	These giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan were infamously dynamited by the Taliban six months before the 9\11 attacks, and as learned by Reddit, the destruction revealed a network of caves with artwork made between the 5th and the 9th centuries, as well as another previously unknown statue of Siddarta.
18	Kim Jong-nam	417,615	The half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was attacked by two women with a chemical weapon (featured at #7) in a Malaysian airport, and died while being transferred to the hospital.
19	Hacksaw Ridge	414,696	Based on the experiences of Desmond Doss (pictured), Mel Gibson's war film was an Academy Award contender.
20	Arrival (film)	413,452	Despite a lauded performance by Amy Adams (pictured) being notoriously snubbed by the Academy Awards, Arrival continued to compile high-profile wins, including Best Adapted Screenplay by the Writer's Guild. Not bad for a science fiction movie, usually ignored by the "serious" awards circuit.
21	Riverdale (2017 TV series)	410,476	The hot new teen drama series based on 1940s comics (I guess everything old is new again), starring K. J. Apa (pictured) as Archie Andrews, returns to the top 25 after a three-week absence.
22	Discoveries of exoplanets	397,145	The #10 entry led to more people searching on how scientists find planets outside the Solar system.
23	Queen Victoria	385,451	Driven by the TV series Victoria. Like #21, returns after a three-week absence.
24	Maha Shivaratri	378,816	The annual Hindu festival in honor of the god Shiva was celebrated on the 24th.
25	Lion (2016 film)	569,893	Like #19 and #20, one of the Academy Award for Best Picture nominees. Lion, starring Dev Patel (pictured), tells the true story of Saroo Brierley, an Indian-born Australian businessman who eventually found the village where he was born through satellite pictures, making it the best film yet made about Google Earth.

In other news:

While three Best Picture nominees entered the top 25, frontrunners La La Land (27th) and Moonlight (45th) were not as proeminent. Only two others, Manchester by the Sea (61st), and Hidden Figures (63rd), cracked the top 100.
After two weeks on the list, Legion (TV series) narrowly misses the cut at #26. It will reappear all through March.

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.

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

Specific exclusions this week

XXX and XXXX: relatively low ranks for XXX (film series) (#30), XXX (2002 film) (#62) and XXX: The Return of Xander Cage (#85), combined with a suspiciously high mobile count suggest artificial inflation.