Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 10 to 16, 2017)
editPrepared with commentary by A lad insane, but Igordebraga did pretty much everything else
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Clowns, Wrestling, More Clowns, Hurricanes, and Drugs
If you are afraid of clowns, turn back now.
All right, I warned you.
This list is almost completely dominated by It, the Stephen King novel recently adapted into a movie. Actually, 8 entries on this list pertain to the novel; this to a point comparable to this report from last year. Actually, this intrigued me enough to do a bit of math, and it turns out that per individual event, this list is dominated to the same extent. Now, feel free to disagree with me here, because this is partly based on my interpretation of events, but this list has the entries It (2017 film), It (novel), Bill Skarsgård, It (character), It (miniseries), Tim Curry, Alexander Skarsgård, and Stephen King, all because of the same thing (the movie), while the other list has 12 entries; Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Billie Lourd, Eddie Fisher (singer), Todd Fisher, Rogue One, Bryan Lourd, Joely Fisher, Star Wars, Darth Vader, Elizabeth Taylor, and Connie Stevens. Okay, so Darth Vader was on the list anyway, with a small spike on the 28th but not much of one. Rogue One and Star Wars spiked on the 27th and 28th but would have made the list anyway. That leaves nine, one more than this report. However, given that there were two deaths and only one movie, in my opinion, the factor of domination is the same. Fortunately, though, this one was not caused by anyone dying, which is always kind of nice.
Other than said clowns, though, there's wrestling. Also hurricanes. And a couple dead people. I guess every report has to have its quota of death. And drugs, from a web series. And finally Reddit learning about sailors doing crazy things for sex. Just lovely.
For the week of September 10 to 16, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 It (2017 film) 2,912,637 Stephen King fans are pleased to see an adaptation better than The Dark Tower: It, previously adapted as a miniseries, got glowing reviews and flocks of people went to theaters to get scared by Pennywise the clown, generating a massive $123 million opening weekend (not only the best ever for the genre, but the second of all time for an R rating behind Deadpool). 2 It (novel) 1,389,332 The success of It (#1) understandably also boosts the source material by Stephen King (pictured), specially since the on-screen title is It: Chapter One, given half the novel is still left for a sequel. 3 mother! 1,189,078 This "psychological horror" film (why so much subcategorization?) premiered on September 15th, and was met with an unusually low box office opening, and reviews as polarized as The Good Mother. Perhaps movies with "mother" in their title are doomed to polarizing reviews. Put a gun against his head, pulled my- I SAID MOTHER, NOT MAMA! Alright, fine. 4 Bill Skarsgård 1,013,990 Portrays the title character in #1. 5 Hurricane Irma 1,006,711 The very next hurricane after Harvey also wreaked large amounts of damage on everything it touched, this time Florida and the Caribbean instead of Texas. This hurricane season is not conducting itself nicely, it seems. 6 September 11 attacks 877,409 The 16th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City's Twin Towers occurred on Monday, but fell two spots and about 280,000 views from last year, probably because last year (15) was a nice, round number, while 16 is not evenly divisible by 5. However, it does take a square root nicely, but apparently people don't care about squares, they only want numbers that look nice. 7 Blue Whale (game) 807,414 India, get it done with taking this "game" from circulation. This is even worse than the Russian roulette gambling den from The Deer Hunter. 8 Deaths in 2017 708,542 More deaths this week, now featuring the oldest person alive before she died, an actor, another actor, a rock drummer, another rock drummer, a comic book writer, and a giant panda. At least no one broke Wikipedia this time around. 9 It (character) 665,531 See #1 (well, actually a lot of stuff, but #1 mostly). 10 It (miniseries) 626,419 See above. 11 Cali Cartel 589,028 This article makes an appearance on the list due to Narcos, a crime drama series. 12 Gennady Golovkin 545,395 Hmm. Boxing. Lovely. People are entertained by two dudes punching other in the face. How amusing. 13 Harry Dean Stanton 512,574 This actor, who appeared in many movies, passed away on Friday at the age of 91. 14 List of Major League Baseball longest winning streaks 486,310 The Cleveland Indians seem to have had their 22-game winning streak ended by the Kansas City Royals on Friday. Why did so much stuff happen on Friday? 15 Rohingya people 457,242 A minority ethnicity in Myanmar that has faced political discrimination for it, the crisis has recently escalated. 16 Tim Curry 429,789 Replaced by #4 as #9. 17 Canelo Álvarez 408,580 Oh. Yay. More boxing. I am just a poor boy, my stories seldom heard...
Oh, is that so?
18 HMS Dolphin (1751) 399,369 Reddit learned recently that sailors on this ship basically tore apart the vessel for sex. How lovely. 19 American Horror Story: Cult 388,182 'tis a bad season for those with coulrophobia: not only we opened this list with a scary clown in theaters, television has a whole bunch of them in the return of FX's anthology horror series, where they start stalking the protagonist played by Sarah Paulson (pictured) and her wife. 20 Rafael Nadal 386,091 Tennis. Tennis happens. Tennis also has a lower case fatality rate than boxing, which is good. 21 Pablo Escobar 384,552 See the Cali Cartel. Also here because of Narcos. I presume you have been reading this list somewhat in order, and you have already read that entry. If you are not, and have yet to reach said entry, it's #11. 22 Alexander Skarsgård 377,598 The brother of #4. As an aside, he was in Zoolander. Cue physically impossible underwear removal. 23 2017 Atlantic hurricane season 373,935 The storms have been so strong people have a reason to check what happened and what is coming next - and Maria was even worse than Harvey and Irma. All I know is that our WikiProject on tropical cyclones will certainly have lots to write about this year. 24 UFC 215 366,019 If boxing wasn't enough, here's some mixed martial arts. 25 Stephen King 364,786 See... um, almost everything, but #1, mostly.