The Top 25 Report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (November 22 to 28, 2015)[edit]

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Summary: Once again, disaster fatigue has set in, and viewers are taking comfort in the bosom of mass media. Even when seeking information on current events, as with Sukhoi Su-24, they seem to be delicately skirting around the topic at hand. The vast majority of articles on this list are either pop culture-related, returnees from previous weeks or years, or both. Even so, interest was high across the board; while the top entries' numbers were unspectacular, this list had the highest entry point since Oscars week. The main focus of that interest was the latest Marvel Netflix series, Jessica Jones, which took the top two slots, and five overall.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of November 22 to 28, 2015, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Jessica Jones	1,918,186	The Netflix series based on this Marvel Comics superhero, starring Krysten Ritter (pictured), debuted on November 20, 2015, and, like its predecessor, Daredevil, has shot to the top of this list. Pandemic binge-watching of the latter among MCU fans led to a rapid decline in interest, as everyone scoffed down the entire season in two days. It will be interesting if this series, which is far more thematically complex and problematic than Daredevil and thus more likely to trigger debate, will share the same fate. As before, ratings don't really apply to Netflix shows but the critics have given this show almost as much love as Dardevil, with a 92% RT rating.
2	Jessica Jones (TV series)	1,599,328	See above.
3	Adele	1,389,379	Up from 903,238 views last week, as the popular singer's new album 25 (#20) was released on November 20 and set about rewriting sales records all over the world.
4	Thanksgiving	1,384,676	This beloved North American holiday has, in the past, been very ill-used by Wikipedia viewers. Every year, when it came around, immediately money-spinning spammers started flooding Wikipedia with fake views for this article, thus forcing us to remove what should have been a perfectly acceptable annual addition to this list. This is the first time since the project began that I can safely say that the article has been included entirely on its own merits without any, ahem, stuffing.
5	Lucy (Australopithecus)	1,148,394	In 1974 the discovery of this half-complete fossil assembly in Ethiopia's Hadar Formation overturned centuries of anthropocentric thinking by showing that our evolutionary big break from the animal kingdom came not when we started getting smarter, but when we started walking upright. On November 24, the 41st anniversary of her discovery, her "birthday" was celebrated by a Google Doodle.
6	Black Friday (shopping)	1,129,549	The day after Thanksgiving is also the day that retailers have earned enough to cover their debts from the previous year, and are thus "in the black" (at least, that's what they say; in truth it probably originated as a reaction to the traffic). Because of this, they often mark down their prices, leading this to become a major day on the shopping calendar and the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season. Over in the UK, where I live, more pious commentators have been staring at this phenomenon with something like horror, decrying its gradual "consecration" as a holy day for the new religion of consumerism. They may be right.
7	Lady Colin Campbell	828,117	Campbell is a British socialite who is now appearing on the new season of Britain's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, which debuted on November 15. This reality series is one whose American version floundered, but has enjoyed great success elsewhere including in Britain, and in Germany where it is nicknamed "Das Dschungelcamp". Her continuing popularity may also be due to her interesting backstory, as she was born intersex and raised as a boy, though her androgynous name is due to her brief and ill-fated marriage to Lord Colin Campbell.
8	Survivor Series (2015)	774,114	As expected, this professional wrestling event, held on November 22, got a fifty percent boost in numbers this week. Roman Reigns (pictured) won the main event.
9	The Man in the High Castle (TV series)	763,741	Amazon Video's big competitor to Netflix's stable, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's dystopian alternate history set in an America ruled by the victorious Axis Powers, had its season finale on September 20.
10	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant	742,427	If they are to be believed, the repellent non-state has finally managed to extend its war beyond its shredded borders and into the heart of the West. This is an unprecedented escalation from them, but then, if there's one thing they've proven themselves good at in the last few years, it's unprecedented escalation. Some see it as desperation; ISIL have suffered numerous substantial losses from bombing and Kurdish incursions. Others have pondered if it marks the first shot in a new generational conflict.
11	Sukhoi Su-24	736,714	I have to say, I never thought I'd see this. A NATO country shoots down a Russian plane for the first time since Russia got the H-bomb, instigating a brief flashback to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the main thing people want to know about it is... what type of plane it was. I mean yeah, the moment passed and didn't really lead to anything, as you can tell because, well, we're still here. But still, isn't there anything else you want to know? Politics? Geography? Weather?
12	25 (Adele album)	657,717	See #3.
13	Spectre (2015 film)	824,240	The latest Bond film is falling slowly; down about 25% from last week. As of November 29, the film has now grossed nearly $750 million worldwide.
14	Purple Man	624,471	There are some disturbing comic book villains out there: Victor Zsasz, Kevin from Sin City; the Joker. But Marvel's Purple Man (yes, he is actually purple in the comics) is in a class of his own. Blessed (?) with the power not just of mind control but of thought control, Zebediah Killgrave a.k.a the Purple Man, will rewrite your mind's script so that your one overwhelming desire is to do whatever he asks; even to kill yourself, your lover or your child. Created in the 1960s as your typical mesmerising hypnotist, recent writers have depicted him as depraved and mad with his power, particularly in Alias, in which he enslaved, sexually assaulted and psychologically tortured Jessica Jones for months. Her recovery from that ordeal forms the main plot of the series, and of Marvel's Jessica Jones (see #1) in which he is played by the eternally affable David Tennant (pictured).
15	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2	606,341	The final Hunger Games film was released on November 20. As of November 29, it has grossed over $440 million worldwide. It opened in 87 markets and came in at #1 in 81 of them, and has held the #1 spot at the US box office for a second week, even beating Pixar's The Good Dinosaur. You might think a film like this would get more views, but if you're going to see the 4th movie in this franchise, you don't need Wikipedia to help tell you what its about.
16	Luke Cage	599,444	Marvel's Blaxploitation-themed superhero (a.k.a. Power Man) has been a cult favourite for decades (Nicolas Cage named himself after him), but has never been adapted to the screen, until now; not only has he made his first screen appearance (played by Mike Colter, pictured) as the love interest of Jessica Jones (see #1) but he is set to star in his own eponymous series on Netflix next year.
17	Verghese Kurien	597,725	The father of India's "White Revolution" which saw India transformed from a net milk importer to the world's largest milk producer in sixty years, got a Google Doodle on his would-have-been 96th birthday on November 24.
18	André the Giant	569,903	It's a testament to how beloved this sadly late former wrestling champion was that this is the second time this year that a "Today I Learned" thread on Reddit has pushed him into the top 25. The fact under discussion was his death at the age of just 47, which occurred while Andre was in Paris for the funeral of his father, who had died just 12 days earlier.
19	The Man in the High Castle	564,921	See #9.
20	Deaths in 2015	541,362	The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550 thousand on average, apparently heedless of who actually died.
21	Thanksgiving (United States)	518,966	See #4.
22	Creed (film)	518,966	Much like its namesake, the Rocky franchise has proved remarkably durable, with Rocky V the only non-hit in nearly 40 years. And this sequel/reboot, in which the aged Rocky decides to train Adonis Creed (played by Michael B. Jordan, pictured), the rudderless son of his now-dead rival-turned-friend, Apollo Creed, has kept up the trend, earning $41 million in its opening weekend, or as much as Rocky V earned in its entire run.
23	Krampus	518,253	As Yuletide falls in the German-speaking regions of the Alps, children are told not only of jolly Saint Nick with his sack of toys; they are also told of Krampus, whose sack is empty, waiting to be filled with naughty children who will then be carried to his lair. He isn't the only "anti-Santa" out there; the Dutch have Zwarte Piet, and the Haitians have Tonton Macoute, but Krampus's demonic appearance caught the eye of America last year, where he became a leering antidote to the oversaturation of manufactured Christmas cheer, and this year, it seems he's back, no doubt aided by an upcoming movie.
24	Captain America: Civil War	517,711	Looking less like "Captain America 3" and more like "Avengers 2.5", the next instalment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an adaptation of the long running series, got its first trailer this week, which has already earned 31 million YouTube views.
25	Krysten Ritter	510,200	After gaining acclaim for her roles in Breaking Bad and Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, Krysten Ritter may finally be getting her big break via Marvel, as the eponymous lead in Jessica Jones (see #1).

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.