Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/July 2 to 8, 2023

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (July 2 to 8, 2023)[edit]

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Capsulecap and Dustfreeworld.

⭠ Last week's report → Next week's report

Many returning subjects but there's a fair share of renewal - and even more will happen next week, as The Idol is expected to take a plunge in pageviews after four weeks straight at the top.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	The Idol (TV series)	1,999,681	At least here on Wikipedia, The Idol matched Squid Game in two things, getting 5 million weekly views (twice!) and being the most viewed article of the week for a month straight. And that's where the comparisons stop, the Korean Netflix show might've had some incredibly violent things but at least viewers were liking it, whereas the HBO show with Lily-Rose Depp as an aspiring singer joining a sleazy cult earned negative responses to being raunchy, cruel and creatively questionable. Plus, Squid Game is returning for a second season, while The Idol was a limited deal of five episodes and will leave creators Sam Levinson and The Weeknd to return to Euphoria and a music career which people actually prefer.
2	Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny	1,521,123	In 2008, Indiana Jones extended a beloved trilogy with a fourth chapter that as much as it polarized fans only made less money than The Dark Knight that year. Things weren't so lucky for Indy in the fifth installment, without Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, that along with not winning everyone over is struggling in a crowded marketplace (it topped the box office in its opening weekend, but by the following one was being beaten by Insidious: The Red Door and is certain to lose ground to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One in the third; ironically, this time the movie with Batman - #16 - is also a victim) and still hasn't made back its massive budget estimated in the $300 million mark.
3	Coco Lee	1,487,499	A Hong Kong singer and actress who took her own life on July 2nd. A groundbreaker when she crossed over to North America (being the first Asian to perform at the Academy Awards, at an NBA game, and at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles), she had been struggling with depression, breast cancer, problems with her left leg, and reportedly marriage problems.
4	Instagram	1,068,567	Ever since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, a bevy of bad decisions have soured the userbase, like hiding good features behind a paywall, removing the verified checkmarks from those who didn't want to pay, and ultimately restricting the amount of tweets a profile can see per day. So Mark Zuckerberg and Meta Platforms took the opportunity to attach one of their social networks, Instagram, to a microblogging platform of their own, Threads (#25), that in less than 48 hours had 80 million users. Time will tell if it remains successful, or if Twitter responds to cover back the lost ground.
5	Deaths in 2023	955,666	As the music dies, something in your eyes Calls to mind a silver screen And all its sad goodbyes...
6	Michael G. Rubin	855,081	The CEO of sportswear company Fanatics, Inc., which has a fairly divisive reputation, used #8 to throw a massive party, which in spite of being on July 4 had everyone in white as if it was New Year's Eve.
7	Facebook	848,061	The Social Network that unfortunately lost much of its reputation (a recent episode of Ted Lasso even had the quote "Jack thought you could post it across your socials. But maybe not Facebook, 'cause that's just for, um, grandparents and racists now, isn't it?"). Yet with sister site #4 receiving #25, it went back into the limelight.
8	Independence Day (United States)	834,388	This event, which happens on July 4th, triggers especially patriotic fervor for Americans in all 50 states.
9	ChatGPT	792,198	Coming back up two places from last week, this chatbot just never seems to fall out of the public eye.
10	Sound of Freedom (film)	660,520	#8 had this come out in theaters and even try to bring up the holiday release as part of the promotion ("Happy 4th of July people, let's talk about a sex trafficking movie with Jim Caviezel!").
11	Andy Murray	660,075	London's legendary All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is holding tennis' third Grand Slam of the year, now accepting back Russians and Belarusians - and related to why they weren't there last year, one of the female quarterfinalists is Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, just nine months after giving birth and with her first opponent being "active ex-player" Venus Williams (who is 43, and unlike her even more successful sister still hasn't retired). On the male side, two time champion Andy Murray (who is downright a Sir because of his successful tennis career!) fell in round 2 after a very contested match with Stefanos Tsitsipas.
12	Wimbledon Championships	642,288
13	Taylor Swift	630,135	The singer-songwriter just released her new album, Speak Now (Taylor's Version), on July 7th. The album is part of a series of albums she re-recorded in response to her dispute with her former record label on the ownership of her albums' master copies.
14	The Witcher (TV series)	612,409	Netflix released the first part of this show's third season on June 29th. The show is one of multiple offshoots of the book The Witcher, along with a movie and numerous video games.
15	George Michael	605,415	Netflix released Wham!, about the eponymous pop duo - released on the 40th anniversary of their debut album - who in spite of hits like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" is best known for launching one massively successful solo singer, to the point that even before they had broken up the iconic song quoted at #5 was being credited to either "Wham! featuring George Michael" or solely to George Michael. Michael's post-Wham! life could probably earn a film on his own, from songs like "Faith", "Freedom" and "Father Figure", an arrest for public indecency dragging him out of the closet, and the last Christmas of his life in 2016.
16	The Flash (film)	567,741	Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse fell off the list and Secret Invasion still hasn't managed to enter, and yet Marvel's Distinguished Competition survived another week, no matter if The Flash divided opinions and is struggling to make money (it opened atop the box office, and by its third weekend was eighth, behind even Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken).
17	Oppenheimer (film)	561,652	This upcoming R-rated film, based on the story of theoretical physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb, is noted for its stark contrast with the Barbie-themed comedy film coming out on the same day.
18	J. Robert Oppenheimer	543,362
19	Harrison Ford	538,373	One of the most iconic stars of the 20th century, who played landmark characters like Han Solo, Jack Ryan, Rick Deckard, and above all, Indiana Jones, who had his last foray with Ford in #2. And in spite of being 80 Ford is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe replacing the late William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross, opening the possibility of him becoming the Red Hulk.
20	Andrew Ridgeley	528,533	As put by the movie Keanu, "N**s, this is George Michael (#15), right here. All right? This one of the greatest recording artists of all time, man. This the real OG up in here. (...) And then, he used to roll with this n**, Ridgeley. Yeah. And then, George Michael was trying to do that solo thing, right? And then, wham! Then nobody never see Ridgeley ever again."
21	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3	527,571	Oh wait, Marvel did appear with the last movie that James Gunn did before leaving for DC Films overseeing what will come after #16 (he even asked to change that movie's ending to make clearer continuities were changing), that just hit video on demand services.
22	2023 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles	509,739	One of the tournaments of #12. Along with #11, round 2 was also the end for French Open finalist Casper Ruud.
23	Titanic	505,103	As more about the Titan submersible implosion comes out, people are realizing more and more that the submersible was bound to have problems. The accident, which has fallen out of the top 25, has rekindled an interest in this ship and its own accident. And if that's not bad enough for the company that made Titan, it apparently made numerous inappropriate edits to Wikipedia in 2018 and 2019.
24	Indiana Jones	493,878	The film franchise which #2 comes from. For those wanting more from the archeologist named after George Lucas' dog beside 5 movies there is a TV series, some games, comics and novels.
25	Threads (app)	477,395	To close it off, when Elon Musk's decisions for Twitter made dissenters go "Don't Tread on Me !", Meta (#4, #7) responded "Go Thread With Me!"