Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 13 to 19, 2015)

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Summary: "¡Viva la Revolución!" Kinda. This week, drug lord and wannabe Bolivar Pablo Escobar was joined by a whole host of somewhat more primetime-friendly political insurgents, as the tidal wave of anger against the managerial styles of many political parties finally seemed to be bearing fruit across the world. Eleven people took part in this week's Republican Presidential debate, but the only ones who made it on this list were those with no prior political experience. The debate saw Carly Fiorina, who had fought to be included, rise to second place in the polls. Meanwhile, in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn an unrepentant hardline socialist, was elected leader of the left-wing Labour Party, and in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull staged an uprising from within and swiped the throne from Tony Abbott. Oh, and Reddit had four threads again. Seems to be an unwritten rule that there can never be more than four Reddit threads on this list.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of September 13 to 19, 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	1,111,040	Holding steady in the top spot for a third week (down by about 300,000 views). The Capone of cocaine shot from the bottom to the top of this list two weeks ago, thanks to the Netflix series Narcos, which charts his rise, brutal rule, and (presumably, at some point) 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	Carly Fiorina	1,026,856	The media's declared "winner" (if there can be such a thing) of Wednesday's second Republican US Presidential debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California and hosted by CNN. Having fought fiercely to be included in the main debate, on the night, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO held a steady course, keeping herself stern and no-nonsense, even when confronted yet again with Donald Trump's now legendary description of her in Rolling Stone: "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" When asked during the debate to comment on Trump's backtrack that he was referring to her "persona", Fiorina countered cooly, "I think women all over this country heard what Mr. Trump said." It worked; polls now show Trump has slumped, while she has shot to 2nd place.
3	Whitey Bulger	954,479	Interest in this Boston Irish mobster, brother of a state senator and coddled FBI informant has skyrocketted thanks to the trailer for the film Black Mass, which features a bonechilling performance by Johnny Depp, playing a particularly icy variation of Joe Pesci's "You think I'm funny?" scene in Goodfellas. The trailer led to a respectable $23 million opening weekend gross.
4	Mia Khalifa	729,528	The Lebanese American porn star (she is apparently the most viewed star on PornHub, thanks largely to the support of patriotic Lebanese) got into a bit of bother with a fifth of the world's population this week when, after a hack of her Instagram account falsely claimed she would be appearing on the Indian version of Big Brother, she huffily replied on social media that she was "never seting foot in India". This of course led to massive backlash from that proud and still largely sexually conservative nation, one she has yet to comment on.
5	Donald Trump	688,313	For a moment there it looked as if the Donald was done, at least as far as this list was concerned; hovering above relegation last week, his numbers doubled after this week's latest Republican debate. His performance was not praised, and may have cost him in the polls, but if his rise has taught us anything, it's that there is no such thing as bad publicity- provided you don't care.
6	Malcolm Turnbull	570,503	In one of those Shakespearean coups that make parliamentary democracies so interesting, the erstwhile Australian Minister for Communications lauched a bid to replace then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott, on the (arguably correct) grounds that he had become an electoral liability. The bid succeeded, granting Turnbull the dubious honour of being the third person in six years to govern Australia without a mandate. Only time will tell if he outperforms his predecessors, though if recent history is anything to go by, not much time.
7	Fool's Gold Loaf	560,787	American cuisine has a habit of sacrficing pleasure on the altar of pure calories, and this delicacy of the Colorado Mine Company restaurant in Denver, is no exception. It consists of a hollowed loaf of bread filed with an entire jar of peanut butter, an entire jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon, and costs $65, hence its name. Despite this, Elvis Presley once flew from his home in Tennessee to Denver at midnight, just to try it, as learned on a Reddit thread this week.
8	Deaths in 2015	553,372	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.
9	Moses Malone	536,211	The six-foot, ten-inch 12-time NBA All-Star and three-time MVP, who finished his career with a record 7,382 offensive rebounds, died in his sleep this week at the relatively young age of 60, of heart failure.
10	Ben Carson	529,336	The soft-spoken neurosurgeon and Republican Presidential candidate (much like Trump and Fiorina, he has yet to hold political office, which appears to be a boon in this race) has seen his viewing numbers jump by more than 50% since the last debate, even as his polls decline slightly in favour of Carly Fiorina. Thanks to his appeal to his party's religious conservative base, he has been nipping at Trump's heels for weeks now, and even scored a point for rational skepticism during the debate by showing Trump up on his belief in the old myth about vaccines causing autism. He still managed to flub it a bit with the odd addendum that parents should have the option to exclude those vaccines that "[don't] prevent death or crippling," despite there being no such vaccines, since all the diseases we vaccinate against can cause death or crippling.
11	Jeremy Corbyn	513,994	In an insurgency that took everyone, including himself, by surprise, this outspoken old school socialist was elected this week as leader of Britain's Opposition Labour Party. Mistrusted by moderates in his own party for his... forthright views (he believes Britain should leave NATO and has spoken in support of Vladimir Putin, Hamas and Hezbollah) Corbyn's rise has delighted the ruling Conservatives, who see him as unelectable, and the right-wing press, though it has also energised Labour's formerly flagging left-wing base.
12	Rosh Hashanah	498,753	Year 5774 of the Jewish calendar arrived with its usual burst of Wikipedia interest. Numbers are down 80,000 or so from last year, when the Jewish New Year managed to top the list, but even last year's numbers would only have moved it to sixth place, so crowded is this week's field.
13	The Visit (2015 film)	493,492	Depending on whom you read, this found footage horror comedy is the first step in a long road to redemption for director M. Night Shyamalan (pictured) or the last nail in his too-long-open coffin. Critics may be polarised (the film has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 59%) but audiences seem generally positive; despite a 55% dropoff in its second week, the inexpensive film has still managed to earn about $46 million so far.
14	Starship Troopers (film)	472,288	As learned in a Reddit thread this week, the cast of the subtle-as-a-sledgehammer scifi satire refused to do a unisex shower scene unless director Paul Verhoeven (pictured) was also naked. He obliged, which frankly should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything whatsoever about Paul Verhoeven.
15	Novak Djokovic	472,288	At the U.S. Open this week, the Serbian wunderkind beat the Best Tennis Player of All Time^TM Roger Federer for the third time in a row; you'd think his numbers would be higher. And that he might be eying that trademark.
16	Anne Frank	437,702	Both the world's single most famous Holocaust victim and most famous child diarist, the girl whose experiences have become a lens through which we view those of countless other silent sufferers used her diary to explore her burgeoning sexuality; explorations her father removed from the diary's pages, as learned in a Reddit thread this week.
17	Floyd Mayweather, Jr.	432,163	On September 13, after beating Andre Berto in 12 rounds and in the process equalling the 49-0 undefeated record set by Rocky Marciano in 1956, the quintuple champion announced he was retiring from boxing, claiming he had nothing left to prove. Almost no one believes he won't return for at least one last fight to break Marciano's record, however.
18	Everest (2015 film)	419,274	Universal Pictures took the unusual step of releasing this historical disaster pic (loosely based on the true-life account Into Thin Air) in premium widescreen and IMAX theatres only, before going wide next week. The strategy seems to have paid off, at least mildly, with a $7.5 million opening weekend.
19	Roger Federer	414,003	The man widely regarded as the best tennis player of all time lost the US Open title to Novak Djokovic in a titanic 200-minute 6–4, 5–7, 6–4, 6–4 showdown.
20	Carol Burnett	422,989	If anyone my age or younger knows Carol Burnett, it's probably by name only. Her longruning variety show ended over 40 years ago, predating even this just-slightly-post-Generation-X fogey. My only lasting memory of her was a joke she told explaining labour pains to men: "Take your bottom lip, and pull it over your head", but that was only because Bill Cosby quoted it. So it was sweet to see Wikipedia's mostly young viewership flock to her page after an unexpected tribute paid to her by fans and comic pupils Stephen Colbert and Kevin Spacey on Colbert's recently acquired Late Show. Spacey began his life in stand-up and is a shockingly good celebrity impressionist; something he proved in his tribute by mimicking her last guest, Jimmy Stewart.
21	M. F. Husain	405,868	A Google Doodle appeared to mark the Indian artist's would-have-been 100th birthday on the 17th.
22	Narcos	405,453	The TV series about the rise of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar (see #1) premiered in its entirety on Netflix on August 28.
23	Tom Hardy	397,722	The British actor and father of three has made claims (which he then denied) of having engaged in homosexual liaisons in the past; claims which came back to haunt him this week at the Toronto Film Festival when a reporter for the gay news site Daily Xtra referred to them obliquely at a press conference. Hardy's response, a slam down "Thank you", caused a minor media storm about whether the press has a right to ask celebrities about their sex lives.
24	Hero (2015 film)	391,639	One of the few times a link on this leads to a disambig, but, this being the English-language Wikipedia, I'm pretty sure it was the Hindi movie they were after. It is produced by current Bollywood box office titan Salman Khan (pictured).
25	List of Bollywood films of 2015	386,479	Not an unusual visitor to the Top 25.

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.