A sea of faces

It is pretty clear what the theme is this week: people. With the media on hiatus during the January dead zone (except for the astonishing performance of American Sniper) Wikipedia readers turned to their other main focus of interest: celebrity. More specifically, dead celebrity. Two of the Traffic Report's subjects died this week (a third, Coronation Street's Anne Kirkbride, just missed the top 10) while two more either died fairly recently (Chris Kyle) or had their lives commemorated (Martin Luther King Jr.). Wikipedia readers' tendency to reduce Super Bowls to duels between rival quarterbacks meant not only that Tom Brady appeared in the Top 10, but that Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson appeared in the Top 25. Altogether, seven of the top 10 slots went to people, and two more went to articles related to them.

For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Chris Kyle	5,275,697	America needs heroes it seems, because when Clint Eastwood gave her one, she embraced him for all she was worth. Viewing numbers for this murdered US soldier have pretty much doubled each of the last three weeks. It's hard to imagine a more perfectly formed hero; a man of superhuman ability (the most successful sniper in military history) and fatal compassion (his murderer was a PTSD-affected veteran whose pain he was hoping to ease on a shooting range) who now, in death, can never be corrupted or betray his own ideals. It is not surprising that America found her hero in a movie; after all, if the US Congress were a movie, it would have the second-lowest score on IMDb, only beating Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas.
2	American Sniper (film)	1,511,250	Clint Eastwood has always had astute commercial instincts as a filmmaker, instincts that appear only to have sharpened with age. But even he must have been flabbergasted at the commercial reception given to his latest film, American Sniper. The biography of sniper Chris Kyle has earned over $200 million in just 11 days of wide release, and that in January, usually considered Hollywood's financial graveyard. There hasn't been a phenomenon like this since Frozen. Adjusted for inflation, the film has already eclipsed Unforgiven as Eastwood's highest grossing film as a director in the US, and shows no signs of slowing down.
3	Martin Luther King, Jr.	1,088,233	It is Martin Luther King Day this week, and, with public awareness of police killings of black men spiking, and claims that blacks are being blocked from voting by new voter fraud laws, it's fair to say the civil rights pioneer's life has more resonance than ever. On top of that, a mild controversy has also emerged concerning the exclusion of his biopic Selma from most major Oscar categories. You'd think that would be enough for him to top the list, but apparently not.
4	List of Super Bowl champions	799,871	This list invariably pops up once a year, as Americans scramble for facts to determine which team will win the Super Bowl; the foremost of all football fiestas (at least in the US- most of the rest of the world has never heard of it).
5	Tom Brady	727,008	The New England Patriots quarterback with the all-American name has led his team to the Super Bowl six times in the last thirteen years, and won thrice. His position on the list implies readers expect him to do so again.
6	Abdullah of Saudi Arabia	726,736	Thanks to the "pass the parcel" mode of succession practised in Saudi, which hands the crown not down the generations but between the sons of the country's first monarch, Ibn Saud, its now-late ruler was 81 when he assumed the throne, and held it for less than a decade before his death this week handed it to his brother Salman, who, at 79, is the youngest surviving son of Ibn Saud. After him, the grandchildren will finally be let in. Such a system ensures that Saudi Arabia will be a gerontocracy for the foreseeable future.
7	I (film)	726,736	The Phantom of the Opera-esque Bollywood film starring Vikram (left) opened this week to reasonable reviews and fairly spectacular box office, netting ₹1.84 billion ($30 million) worldwide in its first 12 days.
8	Greg Plitt	713,992	The fitness model and actor died this week after running between the rails of the Metrolink Antelope Valley Line in Burbank, California. His death was recorded on video and, while it hasn't been released, it apparently suggests he was trying to outrun a train.
9	Lil Wayne	692,652	A suspiciously high mobile count (93%) implies that this week's release of Sorry 4 the Wait 2, the latest mixtape from Lil Wayne, composer of such masterpieces as "B***s Love Me", might not be generating solely human interest, and that his views may be being artificially inflated. I'll leave it to you as to whether we should drop him.
10	Amber Rose	668,488	The hip-hop singer and former stripper caused a minor Internet storm this week when she released some revealing images of herself online, to much attention and a decent amount of criticism.

A sea of faces

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