Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/July 3 to 9, 2022


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Prepared with commentary by YttriumShrew, Igordebraga and an IP

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This week it's a soup of a Report, with no topic dominating, though politicians, tennis, and Netflix and Amazon Prime shows do make decent showings. Up at the top, though, is the tragic death of a former Japanese leader.

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 Shinzo Abe   3,777,595   In 2006, the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan became prime minister after winning his party's leadership. A year later, he was gone, election losses and poor health having hampered his premiership. Yet in 2012, he returned, defeating the beleaguered DPJ government and becoming prime minister again. Shinzo Abe soon made his mark in the world with an innovative economic policy, a successful Olympic bid, and a controversial shift towards rearmament and Japanese nationalism. He became the longest-serving Japanese prime minister ever, serving until ill health once again forced his resignation. Afterwards, he assumed an elder statesman role, until this week, when he was fatally shot. (#8)
2 Georgia Guidestones   2,673,003   In 1980, an anonymous donor erected six huge stones beside the road in Elbert, Georgia, covered in multilingual instructions for humanity. Well, this week someone blew them up, presumably motivated by the many conspiracy theories surrounding them that paint them as a Satanist site.
3 Thor: Love and Thunder   2,292,600   Thor: Ragnarok was much complimented, so Taika Waititi's return to the God of Thunder did not stray far from that movie's blend of comedy, action and a serious villain, only adding some sad elements about grief and mortality. Hence reception has been mixed for feeling too familiar, even if it still provides the same fun expected from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Love and Thunder opened to $302 million globally, so it will shock the box office as much as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
4 James Caan   2,066,046   An actor with a long and storied career, highlighted by his role as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, who just died at the age of 82.
5 Stranger Things   1,400,123   Netflix and The Duffer Brothers (pictured) struck gold in 2016 with this revival of 80s adventure and horror where a small Indiana town is invaded by a dark dimension, and have since released three more seasons. The fifth one in 2024 will be the last, as after all the characters have suffered enough and the teen cast has grown too much.
6 Boris Johnson   1,296,443   Bye-bye Boris
Boris, goodbye
Bye Boris, Boris, bye-bye
Bye-bye Boris
No one will cry
Bye Boris, Boris, bye-bye

Speaking of people who have suffered enough... Boris Johnson's premiership was already flagging, to put it mildly, with the scandal of him and members of his cabinet partying during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions (Johnson would be given a fixed penalty notice, making him the first British prime minister to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office) and him being involved in numerous other scandals, but he managed to survive a vote of no confidence from Conservative MPs and said he would "get on with the job." He also ironically teased the prospect of winning a second and third term and being in office until the 2030s, which would have made him one of the longest serving Prime Ministers. But after allegations of sexual assault surrounding his deputy chief whip, a mass exodus from his government began,, a mass exodus from his government began, starting with the resignations of Rishi Sunak (#17) and Sajid Javid on Tuesday. The most extraordinary 48 hours in recent British political history followed, with dozens of ministers resigning and the PM refusing to do the same (which drew comparisons to Donald Trump's refusal to concede after Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election) despite most of his cabinet coming to his house to tell him the jig was up. He finally resigned on Thursday, setting the stage for a potentially bruising leadership contest to succeed him as PM, with Johnson remaining in office in a caretaker position until a new leader is elected in the autumn. Johnson will leave office as one of the shortest serving PMs.

7 Stranger Things (season 4)   1,157,964   Back to the Upside Down, which finished its most recent season with two extra-long chapters - the two hour finale is one of those cases where tensions run so high that time seems not to pass. This season will also be remembered for giving Kate Bush another Number 1 with "Running Up That Hill", which in the show apparently makes you float in the air and look like Jesse Pinkman when he was high on drugs that one time. It also marks the second time a character in a Netflix show nicknamed "Number 1" was revealed as a major villain, the first being Squid Game.
8 Assassination of Shinzo Abe   1,104,347[a]   On 8 July the former Japanese prime minister (#1) was campaigning in Nara for local candidate Kei Satō when a gunman with largely unknown motivations shot him. He was airlifted to hospital but died later that day. His assassination was the first of a former Japanese prime minister since Saitō Makoto and Takahashi Korekiyo during the February 26 Incident in 1936.
9 Cameron Norrie   1,021,137   Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon for the seventh time, but let's talk about who he had to go through: the semifinal had local player Cameron Norrie in two and half hours, and the decision had Australian Nick Kyrgios in three, both reaching that phase in a Grand Slam for the first time.
10 Nick Kyrgios   1,013,063  
11 Deaths in 2022   872,970   Just yesterday mornin', they let me know you were gone
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to...
12 The Boys (TV series)   780,643   Prime Video finished off the third season of this subversive superhero show, which featured a major death, a few almosts, and many more reasons for audiences to hate Antony Starr's Homelander.
13 Millie Bobby Brown   762,998   #5's Eleven, who'll be back on Netflix with Enola Holmes 2.
14 Sandeep Unnikrishnan   749,841   During the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Sandeep Unnikrishnan led an Indian Army unit into the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel to rescue the hostages trapped inside with the terrorists. He was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime honour. His life was dramatised in the film Major, starring Adivi Sesh (pictured), which was released this week.
15 Elvis Presley   738,099   In August, it'll be 45 years without the King of Rock N' Roll. And the remembrance already started with the acclaimed biopic Elvis, starring Austin Butler.
16 Elena Rybakina   708,989   The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club banned Russians and Belarusians due to #20. And the winner of Wimbledon's female tournament was... a Russian. Who plays for Kazakhstan since 2018, but that still made the English crowd support adversary Ons Jabeur. Rybakina still triumphed, celebrating her first Grand Slam, even if in a very muted way.
17 Rishi Sunak   683,114   The former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was one of the first cabinet members to resign during the 2022 United Kingdom government crisis, is generally seen as the frontrunner to succeed Boris Johnson (#6) as the UK's prime minister. He's pitching himself as a pragmatic, cautious manager of finances, in contrast to the supply-side policies of most of the other candidates. However, he may suffer from a general perception of him as out of touch, as well as lingering questions over his and his wife's tax affairs.
18 The Terminal List (TV series)   672,367   Prime Video released this show featuring an uncharacteristic serious action role for Chris Pratt as a US Navy SEAL.
19 Rafael Nadal   638,196   More tennis now, as we have one of the greats who made it to the Wimbledon semi-finals before an abdominal injury forced him to withdraw from the competition. (leading #10 to the decision with Djokovic)
20 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine   607,900   In its 20th week on the report, Russia can almost claim an accomplishment from this war, as they've successfully occupied the whole of Luhansk Oblast. It's a way off what they were originally aiming for, but I almost feel like they'll claim anything as a win at this point.
21 Elon Musk   606,773   The Tesla and SpaceX CEO withdrew his bid for Twitter on Friday, claiming the company had failed to follow through with his demands regarding spambots (among other things). The trouble is, Musk may not actually be able to do this, because he can only legally pull out at this point if Twitter's actions have significantly devalued their company, and his case for that is tenuous. Weirdly, Twitter now wants to go through with the acquisition, and Musk doesn't, which is the opposite of how it was at the start.
22 Joseph Quinn (actor)   603,199   A British actor who was introduced to the world by Stranger Things (#5), in this case through his role as Eddie Munson in season 4 (#7).
23 Top Gun: Maverick   594,886   The triumphant return of Tom Cruise as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell continues climbing the List of highest-grossing films, having just surpassed for 22nd a 2015 cartoon that just got a follow-up...
24 Minions: The Rise of Gru   592,895   The last reminder of 2020's delayed movies is the return of Despicable Me, naming itself after those yellow creatures but still having a huge role for a young Gru. Reviews were mixed as most of the best parts don't involve the Minions, and the film made $400 million in just two weeks, so maybe it can join Minions and Despicable Me 3 among the billion dollar movies?
25 Brittney Griner   570,345   Before #20 made most of the sports world turn on Russia (see: #16), this basketballer had just arrived in Moscow to play for the Russian Premier League during the WNBA offseason when Customs detained her for finding vape cartridges containing hashish oil. Five months later, her trial has started, with Griner pleading guilty.
  1. ^ Includes 271,056 views for previous title Shooting of Shinzo Abe.

Exclusions

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  • 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 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 talk page if you wish.