Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-12-12/Traffic report

Traffic report

Something Wicked for almost everybody

By Alexysun, BarntToust, CAWylie, DementiaGaming, Igordebraga, Ollieisanerd, Soulbust, and Vestrian24Bio,

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Vestrian24Bio, Ollieisanerd and BarntToust (November 10 to 16); by Igordebraga, CAWylie, Alexysun and Vestrian24Bio (November 17 to 23); and by Igordebraga, DementiaGaming, Soulbust, Vestrian24Bio and CAWylie (November 24 to 30).

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight (November 10 to 16)

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Pete Hegseth	3,946,704	Selected by Donald Trump (#8) to be the United States Secretary of Defense during his second presidential term.
2	Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson	3,849,647	YouTuber-turned-professional boxer #3 defeated the former undisputed heavyweight world champion #4 via unanimous decision in #2. It was streamed globally on Netflix. Boxing fans said it wasn't very good given Tyson showed he was nearly 60 and had no shot against a man less than half his age, but liked the preceding match where Katie Taylor defended her championship belt fighting Amanda Serrano. #3's brother Logan Paul is expected to fight #4 next.
3	Jake Paul	3,518,950
4	Mike Tyson	3,518,013
5	Matt Gaetz	2,713,660	Initially selected by Donald Trump (#8) to be the United States Attorney General during his second presidential term. He withdrew himself from consideration following overwhelmingly negative reactions from Senate Republicans associated with recent ethics investigations regarding his alleged misconduct.
6	2024 United States presidential election	2,240,981	Latest U.S. election, between 45th president Donald Trump (#8) and current vice president Kamala Harris, with the former winning.
7	Tulsi Gabbard	1,966,999	A former Democrat that even tried to be the party's presidential candidate in the 2020 election and has since defected to the Republicans. She has been selected by Donald Trump (#8) to serve as the Director of National Intelligence during his second presidential term.
8	Donald Trump	1,478,718	President-elect of the United States, won #6 and will assume office on January 20, 2025. He selected his presumptive cabinet last week which includes #1, #5, #7, as well as other officeholders such as #9, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy and Tom Homan.
9	Elon Musk	1,454,372	Selected by Donald Trump (#8) to lead the Department of Government Efficiency along with Vivek Ramaswamy during his second presidential term. This planned presidential advisory commission (not a federal executive department) would help to "dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies" and will work with the Office of Management and Budget to address the "massive waste and fraud" in government spending according to #8.
10	2020 United States presidential election	1,411,165	Previous U.S. election, between Donald Trump (#8) and Joe Biden, with the latter winning.

It's time to try defying gravity (November 17 to 23)

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Pam Bondi	2,256,474	In 2020, this former Florida attorney general served on Donald Trump's defense during his first impeachment trial. This led to a job on his organization America First Policy Institute, and now Trump has appointed Bondi as the next United States attorney general after his initial nominee (#7) withdrew.
2	Gladiator II	1,561,228	16 years after he saw in the Colosseum the fatal duel of Maximus and emperor Commodus, Lucius Verus experiences his own version of Maximus' journey, as the Romans kill his wife, enslave him and turn him into a gladiator. No one was requesting this sequel (specially as one attempt at a script was absolutely insane), and like Gladiator it plays fast and loose with Roman history, yet director Ridley Scott managed to deliver another entertaining sword-and-sandal epic, leading to positive reviews and earnings of over $100 million internationally before its North American release, which will determine if the studio can recoup the hefty budget of at least $250 million.
3	Murder of Laken Riley	1,423,886	In February, a nursing student was murdered by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant while jogging at the University of Georgia, causing much commotion (the President mentioned the crime during his 2024 State of the Union address) and leading the House of Representatives to pass an immigration bill named the Laken Riley Act, requiring federal detention of undocumented immigrants who commit burglary, given the perpetrator did not stay imprisoned after some arrests for theft last year. Something that won't repeat for the killer, as last week he was sentenced to life in prison with no parole after a trial for 10 charges, including felony murder and aggravated assault with intent to rape.
4	Wicked (2024 film)	1,421,038	In what was called a second coming of Barbenheimer, #2 is opening opposite a girly big release, namely an adaptation of a Broadway juggernaut (#10) centering around Elphaba and Galinda, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch, back when they were newcomers and roommates at the witchcraft school of the Land of Oz. Widely praised for its cast, spearheaded by Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda, visuals and music, Wicked is also expected to already cover its $150 million budget with its global opening weekend. And given it only tells half of the musical's story; expectations are high for Wicked Part Two releasing next November.
5	Mike Tyson	1,239,426	It's been a week since this former undisputed heavyweight world champion fought Jake Paul live on Netflix and lost by unanimous decision.
6	Linda McMahon	1,178,863	This former CEO of WWE, a professional wrestling promotion, partially walked away from it (and, later, her famous husband) to enter politics in 2009. She ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. senate seat, but, in 2017, then-President Trump made her the administrator of the Small Business Administration. On November 19, 2024, Trump nominated her for, what else, secretary of education. Of course.
7	Matt Gaetz	1,147,692	Initially picked by Donald Trump to be the United States Attorney General during his second presidential term, Gaetz later withdrew, due to the negative reactions from the Senate Republicans associated with recent ethics investigations regarding his alleged misconduct.
8	2024 United States presidential election	1,156,188	Latest U.S. election, between 45th president Donald Trump and current vice president Kamala Harris, with the former winning.
9	Jon Jones	1,079,287	On November 16 at UFC 309, in a match that was supposed to happen last year, the heavyweight champion knocked out Stipe Miocic with a spinning knee kick in the third round in what was called the "performance of the night."
10	Wicked (musical)	1,082,560	Way before Disney made some questionable retellings of "villain as an anti-heroine" in Maleficent and Cruella, in 1995 Gregory Maguire wrote Wicked, a revisionist biography of the Wicked Witch of the West, now named "Elphaba". 8 years later this musical adaptation hit Broadway, and was a massive hit, being alongside The Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King one of three plays to earn over $1 billion on Broadway, and generating multiple international versions (in fact, the picture to the left is the Brazilian one). A film version of the musical is in theaters (#4), and has a cameo of the original portrayers of Elphaba (Idina Menzel) and Glinda (Kristin Chenoweth).

We're off to see the Wizard (November 24 to 30)

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Wicked (2024 film)	2,285,212	21 years after Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman made a musical doing a revisionist take on the Land of Oz (itself based on novel) comes a film adaptation – or rather, half of it, with its part II set to release next Thanksgiving – directed by Jon M. Chu, and co-written by Holzman. Wicked tells about Elphaba, who later became the Wicked Witch of the West (played by #4) and Galinda, best known as Glinda the Good Witch (#6), before they received a visitor from Kansas. The first part, released last week in the U.S., opened to positive reviews and made $162.9 million worldwide in its opening weekend, thus recovering its $150 million budget.
2	Wicked (musical)	1,974,913
3	Gladiator II	1,441,383	In the United States, the above movie opened opposite a very different competitor, an unexpected sequel to Gladiator where the now grown child from the first movie follows the same journey of being attacked by the Romans, enslaved and joining blood sports, and the contrast was compared to Barbenheimer, with Gladiator II protagonist Paul Mescal encouraging a double feature to what he described as "Glicked". Even if its opening weekend was half of its competitor, $55 million is still a respectable number, and added to international totals Gladiator II has passed $300 million after 3 weekends playing worldwide.
4	Cynthia Erivo	1,278,829	This British actress and singer first appeared in some of her country's television series in 2011. Two years later, she starred in an Off West End production of The Color Purple musical and made her Broadway debut in its revival in 2015 (and won a Tony Award). Many stage and screen appearances later, she stars in #1 as Elphaba, alongside #6.
5	Moana 2	1,029,002	The ego of a former wrestler was part of the reason this film was made; his ego will continue to manifest itself in Hollywood with a planned live-action Moana reboot. Not that Moana was a bad movie, and neither is this one (the original is better, but Moana 2 is a far cry from the shoddy direct-to-video sequels Disney used to make for their animated classics), that was promoted from Disney+ miniseries to a theatrical feature expected to make a splash at the box office.
6	Ariana Grande	991,041	In 1998, a young Boca Raton girl was hit by a puck in a Florida Panthers game. 17 years later, she was the main attraction at the same arena, following an acting stint on Nickelodeon and two studio albums. And now this year is glorious for both parties, with the Panthers having won the Stanley Cup and Ariana Grande-Butera (which is how she's credited on #1; she normally drops the latter part of her surname, leaving only the ironic one meaning "big" when Grande's fairly short) having an acclaimed performance as Glinda the Good Witch that is even considered a possible Academy Award nominee.
7	Deaths in 2024	990,059	Let's quote the above: I only wanna die alive Never by the hands of a broken heart...
8	2024 United States presidential election	837,220	Latest U.S. election, between 45th president Donald Trump and current vice president Kamala Harris, with the former winning.
9	International Society for Krishna Consciousness	819,731	This could be excluded on the mobile view percentage below, but there seems to be a reason for it to enter: a monk of this group commonly known internationally as "Hare Krishnas" (who in India itself are referred to as ISKCON) was arrested in Bangladesh, and a protest of his supporters evolved into a conflict with security forces, during which a lawyer was murdered. ISKCON denied direct involvement with the death, but there were even requests to ban the organization from Bangladesh.
10	Killing of JonBenét Ramsey	773,420	Why is this article on the list? One word: documentary. It's a pretty-well known fact that most of the entries on Top 25 make it here because a documentary on the streaming service known as Netflix. JonBenét Ramsey, a beauty pageant child, was found dead in the basement of the house she lived in on Christmas Day in 1996. It's a pretty long and drawn-out murder case that I'm not going to explain into detail when there is a new documentary waiting for you on Netflix to watch yourself. Funny enough, my parents are watching this documentary right now in the living room! My mom is explaining the whole documentary to my dad because he won't listen to the show.

Exclusions

These lists exclude 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 exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% 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 Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

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