Hiding under the covers of the Internet
We live in a harsh, uncertain world. There's an escalating war in Syria that seems to be drawing in the entire northern hemisphere, a resulting European migrant crisis, a slow rise to the boil of the unending Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and ever more school shootings in the US. But people aren't turning to Wikipedia to comprehend these things; they're turning to Wikipedia to, well, keep up with the Kardashians, follow their latest shows, and track the latest movies. Is the world hiding from itself? Or is Wikipedia not seen as a valid source for such information? Difficult questions. But then, those are in abundance these days.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of October 11 to 17, 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 Lamar Odom 
2,067,704 
At this point in their evolution, the Kardashian clan have coalesced into their own self-sustaining media ecology, independent of outside events, common sense, and perhaps even thermodynamics. The unconscious appearance of Odom, the former basketball star and divorced husband of Khloe Kardashian, at a Nevada brothel was not only enough to have him top the list, but to garner almost as many views as the next three topics combined—suggesting that a sizable portion of humanity is prepared to follow them onto their planet. 2 UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying 
746,591 The English-speaking world has been well-served in qualifiers this year. This week's near-double jump in numbers was likely due to both Northern Ireland and Wales earning a berth at next year's finals in France. 3 Bernie Sanders 
728,853 
The junior Senator from Vermont, longest-serving Independent in US history, and self-described Democratic socialist has been for the left of American politics what Donald Trump has been for the right—the voice of angry disaffection. This week, he reappeared on this list after polls claimed he'd won this week's Democratic debate. While no one seriously expects him to win the Democratic nomination, he has provided a much-needed prod for Hillary, who has at times acted as if she was being ordained, rather than elected. 4 American Horror Story: Hotel
723,745 
The fifth season of American Horror Story premiered on October 7. The second episode, "Chutes and Ladders", saw a decent-ish 50% drop in views from the premiere. 5 A. P. J. Abdul Kalam 
584,665 
This beloved former scientist and reluctant politician, whose death last July at the age of 83 led to him topping this list, reappeared on the week of his first post-mortem birthday. 6 Crimson Peak
580,155 
Director Guillermo del Toro's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Gothic romance has been declared merely "average" by critics, received a withering "B-" from the usually generous Cinemascore, and opened to a dead-on-arrival $12 million. Given this, it's interesting that it nonetheless managed to be the most viewed film of the week on Wikipedia—box office numbers have usually proved to be a good indicator of views. Perhaps it was del Toro's nerd-friendly back catalogue, or the presence of Marvel heartthrob Tom Hiddleston. 7 Pablo Escobar
572,268 
The fascination with the Netflix series Narcos continues to keep the Capone of cocaine near the top of this list. 8 Deaths in 2015 
538,797 
The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant, fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550 thousand on average. The counts are apparently heedless of who actually died. 9 The Martian (film)
532,484 
The adaptation of Andy Weir's popular novel about an astronaut stranded on Mars (played by Matt Damon) has grossed $319 million worldwide as of October 17 on a budget of $108 million. 10 The Walking Dead (TV series)
526,852 
The show's sixth season premièred on October 11.
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Discuss this story
I think that the interpretation of Odom is off. I am one of the idiots who looked up the name, not because of any interest in that marketing sensation, but because I saw news about the person as if it were an issue and didn't know why. If we were clever with feedback, we might be able to come up with a who the hell is XXXX metric to explain the proportion of hits on any given name, though I don't know how... Wnt (talk) 12:37, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- It can be hard to parse out the reasons for popularity of pop culture topics. There is no doubt that Odom got more attention than he would otherwise due to the Kardashian connection. I'd like to think that Odom's personal tragedy itself was primarily the cause for attention, but we don't know that. Indeed, you'll see in the next Traffic Report that Justin Trudeau was #1 -- to some extent influenced not by his political success but because the internet decided he was hot.--Milowent • hasspoken 14:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well it's interesting that Bernie Sanders made the list, but not Donald Trump. I'm not sure what to make of that. Praemonitus (talk) 19:46, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]