Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/September 3 to 9, 2017

edit

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga

Last week's reportNext week's report

Clowns, Hurricanes & Blow: It was a really scary week: the Americas have people frightened of killer clowns in It (#1, #6, #22) and American Horror Story: Cult (#25), losing their homes to the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season (#4, #7, #11, #15, #19), and threatened to be deported by the Trump administration rescinding DACA (#2); meanwhile in Asia, India has the Blue Whale suicides (#3) and a journalist being murdered (#17) - best hope their new Minister of Defence (#21) helps things - and Myanmar sees a nasty armed persecution of minorities (#23, #24). The deaths in 2017 list even returned to the top 10. The escapism that always permeates the rest of the list, aside from football\soccer (#8) and tennis (#12, #18) continues subjects as heavy as the monster clowns, with Narcos (#9) reviving interest in the Colombian cartels (#4, #14, #15) and Game of Thrones keeping itself on the list in spite of the season ending (#20).


For the week of September 3 to 9, 2017, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:


Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 It (2017 film)   1,889,679
 
Stephen King fans are pleased to see an adaptation better than The Dark Tower: It, previously adapted as a miniseries, got glowing reviews and flocks of people went to theaters to get scared by Pennywise the clown, generating a massive $123 million opening weekend (not only the best ever for the genre, but the second of all time for an R rating behind Deadpool).
2 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals   1,736,311
 
Donald Trump continues his crusade against both immigration and whatever predecessor Barack Obama did by rescinding this policy that allowed some individuals who entered the United States illegally as minors to defer their deportation and seek a work permit. Needless to say, reaction was negative, with both protests like the one pictured on the left, and a lawsuit started by 15 states and the District of Columbia to not repeal DACA.
3 Blue Whale (game)   1,162,550
 
India, get it done with taking this "game" from circulation. This is even worse than the Russian roulette gambling den from The Deer Hunter.
4 Hurricane Irma   1,102,020   The most intense Atlantic hurricane in a decade has ravaged the Caribbean and made landfall in Florida. Given Hurricane Harvey (#11) hit two weeks prior, it's the first time the United States were hit by two such strong storms the same year, and at least the Federal Emergency Management Agency showed they learned from Harvey to ensure the damage wasn't as bad stateside.
5 Cali Cartel   1,037,554   Colombian drug dealers, namely an offshoot of the Medellín Cartel that wound up surpassing the original in the mid-1990s? This can only mean one thing: Narcos is back (#9).
6 It (novel)   889,688   The success of It (#1) understandably also boosts the source material by Stephen King (pictured), specially since the on-screen title is It: Chapter One, given half the novel is still left for a sequel.
7 Hurricane Andrew   764,489   With Hurricane Irma (#4) approaching Florida, it brought back memories of 25 years ago, when Andrew became the costliest storm to ever hit the state.
8 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification   760,123   More football squads are getting their spots for next year's tournament in Russia. Joining the hosts and the already qualified Brazil (the biggest champions who are the only nation present in all tournaments) and Iran (who tortured me and other viewers in 2014 with boring play), are the other three Asian squads - Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia - plus the first ones from North\Central America - Mexico - and Europe - Belgium. The qualifiers resume in October 5.
9 Narcos (season 3)   727,867   Narcos is one of those series that don't bother with the death of the main character, as the second season ended with Pablo Escobar's death: now they head south of Medellín to focus on the Cali Cartel (#4).
10 Deaths in 2017   701,304
 
"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die."
11 Hurricane Harvey   682,600
 
Hurricane Harvey, the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2005, struck southern Texas beginning August 25, causing catastropic flooding in the Greater Houston metropolitan area, and the confirmed deaths of 65 people in the United States, as well as one from an earlier landfall on the South American nation of Guyana.
12 Sloane Stephens   656,955   The 2017 U.S. Open came down to a domestic final between two players who'd never gotten to a Grand Slam final. The title was won by the oldest one, Stephens.
13 Hurricane Katrina   641,985   The strongest hurricane to hit the United States before Irma (#4), causing in New Orleans a hellish flooded landscape that is being seen in Houston after Harvey (#11) - which also hit Louisiana, but with much less strength. In fact, Katrina is shaping to be the only cyclone to generate more economic losses than Harvey.
14 Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela   635,957   The two leaders of the Cali Cartel (#4), currently being portrayed in Narcos (#9) - where following Pablo Escobar being Brazilian, are played by a Mexican and an Argentinian. Orejuela was arrested in 1995 and is currently imprisoned in North Carolina, while Herrera surrendered to the police one year later and was murdered in prison in 1998.
15 Hélmer Herrera   629,297  
16 Barbuda   614,741   Half of the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda was ravaged by Hurricane Irma (#4), and the previously idyllic island full of resorts has been deemed "barely inhabitable". Even celebrities are backing the rebuild, so hopefully it recovers soon.
17 Gauri Lankesh   595,368   Indian journalist-turned-activist Lankesh was shot dead in her house. Protests against her murder and homages to her work have since emerged worldwide.
18 Madison Keys   566,752   Keys lost the U.S Open to Sloane Stephens (#12), but still ranks above her in the Women's Tennis Association rankings.
19 2017 Atlantic hurricane season 552,976   The storms have been so strong people have a reason to check what happened and what is coming next - Jose might recover strength, Katia hit Mexico, and maybe Lee is on the way? All I know is that our WikiProject on tropical cyclones will certainly have lots to write about this year.
20 Game of Thrones (season 7)   546,274   People are still recovering from this season filled with blood, fire and ice, while waiting for the concluding episodes, whether they air in 2018 or 2019. In the meantime, those who want an HBO show with British people talking about a messy place can settle for Last Week Tonight.
21 Nirmala Sitharaman   533,295   Sithamaran was named Indian Minister of Defence, only the second woman to hold the job after Indira Gandhi.
22 Bill Skarsgård   526,667   This Swedish actor, son of Bootstrap Bill Turner and brother of Tarzan, stars in It (#1) as Pennywise, and reviewers feel he managed to fill the oversized shoes of Tim Curry, who famously portrayed the monster clown in 1990.
23 Rohingya people   525,030   The Southeast Asian republic of Myanmar, also known as Burma, has seen non-stop internal struggle since 1948. One of those is currently on the news: ethnical and religious persecution against the Rohingya, a group of about a million who are even denied Burmese citizenship, has escalated to armed conflicts between the government and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, with hundreds dead, thousands forced to flee to neighbor Bangladesh and human rights violations all around.
24 Myanmar   502,301  
25 American Horror Story: Cult   498,865   'tis a bad season for those with coulrophobia: not only we opened this list with a scary clown in theaters, television has a whole bunch of them in the return of FX's anthology horror series, where they start stalking the protagonist played by Sarah Paulson (pictured) and her wife.