Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (August 30 to September 5, 2015)

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Summary: Sorry we're late; it was due to a miscommunication. We'll be back on track next week. Still, the overall picture remains fairly static for the third week. Interestingly, many of last week's holdovers retained their positions despite falling numbers, indicating a lower view count overall. This, of course, means that Straight Outta Compton the film phenomenon no one but its remarkably business-savvy producers and subjects saw coming, remains the dominant theme for the fourth week in a row. If there's one thing the last four weeks have given me, it's a new appreciation for the work of Dr. Dre, who has single-handedly created a service economy in the American ghetto.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of August 30 to September 5, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Pablo Escobar	1,573,813	The Capone of cocaine shot from the bottom to the top of this list this week, thanks to the Netflix series Narcos, which charts his rise, brutal rule, and bloody end. It is odd that the Colombian drug lords haven't been romanticised as their Italian Chicago predecessors were. Perhaps it's simple xenophobia, or more likely, because we are so much more aware of how barbaric they were.
2	Wes Craven	891,306	Few filmmakers can claim to have completely altered the courses of their preferred genres; horror director Wes Craven, who died this week at 76, did so three times: his brutal 1971 Bergman homage The Last House on the Left ignited a decade-long shocksploitation craze, while his supernatural slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street recharged the ageing slasher genre by creating a villain, Freddy Krueger, with character and personality, rather than a silent, stomping force of nature. Finally, his 1996 hit Scream turned the tables on its own genre by snarkily sending up its by-then tired conventions, and in the process inspired a slew of imitators.
3	Easy-E	827,728	The founding member of N.W.A, whose death from AIDS at the age of just 31 forms the emotional climax of the film Straight Outta Compton, remains in the top 10 for the fourth week in a row.
4	Narcos	635,565	The TV series about the rise of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar (see #1) premiered in its entirety on Netflix on August 28.
5	Until Dawn	631,313	The year's first "big" video game, this "interactive horror film" has been getting positive reactions from critics and the public; it seems the never-really-liked genre of interactive movies may finally have found a genre that works.
6	Dr. Dre	614,344	Far and away the most successful talent to emerge from N.W.A, Dr. Dre would go on to shepherd talents such as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Xzibit, 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar, and ultimately become the richest man in hip hop, after Apple Inc.'s purchase of his company Beats Electronics earned him $620 million. He has wondered in the past if people have forgotten him; well the release of Straight Outta Compton has put that fear to rest. The soundtrack for Straight Outta Compton is Dre's first album in 16 years, and opened at #2 at the US chart amid critical acclaim. But his co-producing credit on the Straight Outta Compton film has also drawn some negative attention to its apparent ignorance of Dre's abusive past with women, for which Dre has copiously mea culpa-ed this week, no doubt to clear the air with Apple.
7	Straight Outta Compton (2015 film)	611,826	The biopic of the short-lived but electrifying hip-hop group N.W.A was released on August 14 to superb reviews and blockbuster business- its $56 million opening weekend gross was higher than those for Terminator Genisys and Pixels combined; it held the #1 slot at the US box office for three weeks straight, and now has a domestic box office total of $151 million. It's interesting to note that African Americans make up just 12% of the US population, and films aimed specifically at that market, like those of Tyler Perry, are considered hits if they reach $60 million after their entire runs. That shows the breadth of this the movie's appeal across racial lines. That the film's story chimed so well with recent events in America likely also played a role.
8	Anthony Martial	607,679	Aged just 19, the French football player for AS Monaco was transferred to Manchester United this week for a mildly staggering £36 million ($56 million), the highest fee ever paid for a teenager, leading some in the press to speculate as to whether his new employers had placed their bets too soon.
9	We Are Your Friends (film)	591,428	Once again, box office proves to be the prime mover of views onto this list, though not, perhaps, in the way you might think. The film stars Zac Efron (pictured) as an aspiring DJ, and had the worst opening weekend ever for a major-studio release in more than 2000 locations, at just $1.7 million. The reason for the film's abysmal performance is unclear, though CinemaScore, an audience-rating survey so unconditionally forgiving it almost never awards a grade lower than a "B", gave this film a "C+", which may go some way towards explaining it.
10	Ice Cube	575,453	While still very much a rapper, the onetime N.W.A member is now arguably better known as an actor and a filmmaker. At the suggestion of John Singleton, he adapted his lyrical talents into screenwriting, and the result was the hit Friday film series, which introduced the world, for better or worse, to Chris Tucker. He also starred in a number of hit films including Are We There Yet? and Ride Along. And his son is carrying on the family business by playing him in Straight Outta Compton, but before you cry nepotism, the kid's getting good reviews.
11	Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain	565,054	If the acrimonious split between Konami and mad genius Hideo Kojima, and the firm's subsequent gleeful abandonment of "triple A" game-making in favour of gambling and mobile machines are any indication, this will be the last of the long-running and increasingly unhinged Metal Gear series. With 3 million in global sales so far, the game's success suggests fans are willing to overlook controversy if the product is good, and reviews suggest it is.
12	N.W.A	559,287	Their heyday lasted all of four years, but the members of this pioneering group would go on to create their own industry and bring gangsta rap to the mainstream.
13	Deaths in 2015	554,524	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.
14	Google logo	511,056	The logo whose large friendly letters act as the Web's front door for much of the developed world underwent a style change this week to a denser, blockier sans serif font more easily viewed on mobile tablet devices. Reaction to the new logo has been mixed, but quiet, with even those who dislike it admitting it was probably necessary.
15	Donald Trump	488,477	The big event in The Donald's week was signing a pledge (ostensibly for all 17 Republican Presidential hopefuls, but really just for him) saying that he would not run as an independent candidate if he failed to win the Republican primary. Consensus among pundits was that this was a bad move; it did little to raise his already sky-high popularity and denied him the greatest weapon in his arsenal.
16	Fear the Walking Dead	473,425	AMC's spin-off to their hit series The Walking Dead premièred on August 23.
17	Google	431,937	The world's most popular search engine returns to the Top 25, doubtless due to the change of its logo (see #14 above).
18	Suge Knight	425,966	While he did much to secure the careers of artists like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, the business practices of this record producer owed more to John Gotti than George Martin. Currently in jail on probation charges, Marion "Suge" Knight (the name is pronounced like "sugar" without the "-ar") has long been suspected of having a hand in the murder of rapper rival Biggie Smalls, and even in that of Tupac Shakur, despite having been in the car with him when he was shot. He appears in the film Straight Outta Compton, played by R. Marcus Taylor. If plans for a Tupac-centric sequel go ahead, expect his role to be massively expanded.
19	The Weeknd	424,764	With a stage name seemingly invented to avoid Wikipedia disambiguation, this Canadian singer made minor music history this week when he became the first male artist in 7 years to have two singles in the Billboard top 3.
20	Indrani Mukerjea	422,989	The former media executive was arrested this week on suspicion of having murdered her daughter.
21	Mr. Robot (TV series)	409,353	The season finale of this cyberpunk thriller starring Christian Slater (pictured), aired this week after a delay in response to the murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward.
22	Kanye West	405,046	The rapper/entrepreneur is no stranger to outrageous self-promotion, but his announcement at this year's 2015 MTV Video Music Awards that he planned to run for President in 2020 may very well be his magnum opus. Given that this year's election cycle isn't over yet, we still have plenty of time to see if he was actually serious.
23	Teachers' Day	405,046	When Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan succeeded Nehru as the President of India, some requested that they be allowed to mark his birthday on September 5 as a way to honour him. He said that the best way to honour him would be to declare it Teachers' Day, and so it has been since 1962.
24	2015 MTV Video Music Awards	404,819	The 32nd annual VMAs were held on August 30 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Always a magnet for outrageous stage behaviour, this year saw Kanye West announce his plan to run for President (see #22 above).
25	Stephen Hawking	385,310	The former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist and latter-day science icon was a long-term resident of this list last year, thanks to the release of The Theory of Everything. His return is likely due to a new hypothesis he has proposed regarding information trapped in black holes, which has once again sent the general public slightly wobbly. In 1974, Hawking proved that, in order to coexist with the laws of quantum mechanics black holes must, paradoxically, evaporate. But if they do, they must gradually reveal the material they've gobbled up. Yet, nothing can escape a black hole, so will this material ever be revealed? Hawking has proposed two solutions: 1. material never actually reaches the core of a black hole, and instead remains encoded in a 2D "hologram" around the black hole's rim (known as its event horizon), or, much more excitingly, 2. material entering black holes is never destroyed at all, but instead enters a parallel universe. Feel free to wobble for a moment.

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 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.