Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 18 to 24, 2023

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 18 to 24, 2023)

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Ollieisanerd, Newtothisedit, and a helpful IP.

⭠ Last week's report → Next week's report

Terrible things in the North Atlantic, Russia, and HBO have the most attention this week.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	The Idol (TV series)	6,517,575	Geez, those are some big numbers. The only other show to get over 5 million views in a week here on Wikipedia was Squid Game, and that one was breaking viewership records and getting acclaim, as opposed to The Idol hardly registering (even if people might not see TV on TV anymore, episodes 2-4 combined barely beat the least viewed episode of fellow HBO show The Last of Us) and the discourse is mostly on negative qualities like a behind the scenes dispute, lots of sleazy content, and the questionable acting abilities of co-creator The Weeknd. In any case, the limited series ends with episode 5 this Sunday.
2	2023 Titan submersible incident	3,029,772	Titan was a submersible so-named because it was used for very expensive (at its lowest tickets were US$105,000!) trips to the most famous shipwreck in history, the Titanic. Its first dive of 2023 ended up going very wrong, as it lost contact on June 18, and after four days of search the discovery of a debris field made clear that Titan was almost close to the wreck when it suffered a catastrophic implosion (in fact, the page's current name is Titan submersible implosion). All five passengers were ruled to have died instantly, including one with many adventurer credentials, Hamish Harding, who had gone to the South Pole, the Challenger Deep and even space before the fatal voyage, only two days before his 59th birthday.
3	Hamish Harding	2,773,229
4	Adipurush	2,533,392	This Bollywood epic based on the Ramayana, starring Prabhas and Kriti Sanon (pictured), is currently climbing the highest-grossing Indian films ranking even if it's still halfway through the massive budget while earning negative reviews.
5	Wagner Group	2,292,021	A Russian paramilitary group described as "Putin's private army", involved in among other things the invasion that just won't end, decided to start an armed rebellion (#13) accusing the Russian Ministry of Defense of killing its members. It only lasted one day before a deal was struck (involving its leader #12 leaving for Belarus), but was enough for Wagner to seize one town and launch a convoy headed towards Moscow.
6	Titanic	2,261,181	#2 has created a resurgence of interest in the Titanic.
7	OceanGate	1,980,596	The company behind the submersible involved in #2, co-founded by #17.
8	Juneteenth	1,850,138	One of the latest federal holidays in the United States (added only in 2021), celebrating how the Governor of Texas proclaimed freedom for emancipated slaves on June 19, 1865.
9	Shahzada Dawood	1,596,792	Pakistani businessman, victim of #2 alongside his 19 year-old son, whom he had brought with him for a Father's Day treat.
10	Wreck of the Titanic	1,377,230	The remains of #6, which the victims of #2 lost their lives in an attempt to see.
11	The Flash (film)	1,305,638	DC Comics' Scarlet Speedster finally got his own movie, in which Barry Allen used his superspeed powers to change history and screwed the world, forcing a team-up with his past self, old Batman and brunette Supergirl. Yet it's not as fast to get money, hurt by among other things the controversies of star Ezra Miller and how the DC Extended Universe is restarting, as in spite of a good opening weekend it fell hard in the second (barely beating the Jennifer Lawrence sex comedy No Hard Feelings while being surpassed by holdovers #20 and #25).
12	Yevgeny Prigozhin	1,082,220	Prigozhin is a Russian oligarch who was originally a close confidant of Vladimir Putin until this week when he launched a rebellion against him with #5 amidst growing tensions between Prigozhin and the Russian Ministry of Defence. He had previously denied having any involvement with the Wagner Group, until September last year when he admitted to being its founder. The mutiny eventually only lasted one day, with the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko intervening. Wagner was presented with three options: joining the Ministry of Defence, relocating to Belarus, or disbanding. Prigozhin stepped down as Wagner's leader, and his forces began retreating from Rostov-on-Don on 24 June.
13	Wagner Group rebellion	1,049,295
14	ChatGPT	1,044,445	The chatbot finally fell off the top 10 in spite of retaining much reader interest.
15	Kamala Sohonie	998,925	Google homaged what would be the 112th birthday of the first Indian woman to get a PhD, and whose biochemistry efforts also led to the creation of the nutritious drink Neera.
16	Byford Dolphin	985,087	#2 made people discover\remember another deep sea tragedy in this drilling rig that in 1983, in the North Sea, suffered an explosive decompression that killed five people.
17	Stockton Rush	973,947	CEO and co-founder of #7 and victim of #2, known for ignoring numerous warnings about the safety of the vessel, which ultimately ended up with his demise.
18	Deaths in 2023	960,349	I'm all out of hope One more bad break could bring a fall...
19	Extraction 2	902,198	This Netflix sequel earned a lot of praise. Viewership numbers are unknown, but must include all the new subscribers that came from the service becoming unfriendly to shared accounts.
20	Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	869,521	All the big news prevented the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe release, Secret Invasion, from entering this list (its views were only good for #28). Thus the House of Ideas is only represented through Miles Morales' animated multiversal misadventures, which are not part from that franchise (it isn't even made by Marvel Studios, but like all Spider-Man films by Columbia Pictures - or to be more precise, sister studio Sony Pictures Animation).
21	Wyndham Clark	776,003	This relatively unknown American golfer whose previous best finish at a major was a tie for 75th, pulled off an upset victory at the 2023 US Open, beating out Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler.
22	James Cameron	762,394	Of course #6 brings the best known movie about the shipwreck back to attention! Its director actually visited #10 over 30 times, down to filming a documentary there, and is such a diving enthusiast he once sank all the way to the Mariana Trench that is Earth's lowest point. Along with jokes that Cameron's submersible crew would soon go after #2 (preferably with this playing), Cameron himself declared that it was a disaster waiting to happen, claiming #7 was cutting corners while designing and building Titan.
23	List of Black Mirror episodes	758,991	Series 6 of Charlie Brooker's dark anthology hit Netflix, with some changes that included period pieces (one in the 60s, one in the 70s and one in the mid-2000s) and given Brooker disliked being suggested to do an episode on NFTs, he went on to create episodes following the maxim "'Humans are weak' is the story, rather than 'technology is evil'", hence along with deepfakes done through abusing costumer data and robot doubles there are less technological episodes concerning serial killers, paparazzi and demons.
24	Victor Wembanyama	733,092	It was time for the 2023 NBA draft, with this dominating Frenchman being the top pick. Considering the last #1 the San Antonio Spurs had was Tim Duncan, the team is set for the future!
25	Elemental (2023 film)	721,635	Finishing it off, beating among other things #22's submersible, #23's show, and the event led by #24 is Pixar's latest, a romantic comedy involving a city inhabited by anthropomorphic classic elements. In spite of positive reviews noting it as alright even if far from the studio's best, Elemental had a weak opening weekend right below #11 at the box office (even if it surpassed it in the second) and is at risk of being a comparable financial disappointment.