Serial killer Dahmer, Musk, Sunak among the most visited Wikipedia pages in 2022

Dahmer, who killed and dismembered 17 people between 1978 and 1991, recaptured public imagination this year after the release of the Netflix series ‘Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story’, a fictional retelling of the murders. Over 52.6 million people viewed his Wikipedia page, using it as a “second screen” to process the series.

This was a theme seen across the board, Wikipedia said.

The release of ‘Elvis’, the 2022 biographical film on iconic singer Elvis Presley, triggered over 15.3 million visitors to his Wikipedia page, while the release of the Netflix series ‘Inventing Anna’ spiked the interest in the Wiki page of Anna Sorkin. The article page of the Russia-born con artist recorded over 16.3 million views in 2022.

Musk, World Cup prove popular

Current events too played a pivotal role in driving traffic to the online encyclopedia. Unsurprisingly, businessman Elon Musk was a popular figure on the site, with his Wiki page garnering over 25.4 million views in 2022. “People have come back to Wikipedia over and over to learn about the entrepreneur and business magnate, but never more than when he announced last April that he had entered into an agreement to purchase the social media network Twitter,” Wikipedia said in the blog post.

The recently-concluded FIFA World Cup too figured in the top 5 most-viewed pages on English Wikipedia. “English Wikipedia has two main articles on the World Cup — one for this year’s tournament, and another for its history since its creation in 1930 — and the two have been read a combined 55 million times this year, a figure that will continue to rise until a winner is declared,” said the post.

Aside from this, profile pages of world leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian-origin British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and that of members of the British Royal Family, including British King Charles III, Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II’s father George VI were among the top 25 most-visited pages on the site.

Actors Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, who were embroiled in a widely publicised defamation suit from April to June 2022, too made it to the top 25 list. Heard’s Wiki page recorded over 19.5 million page views, while Depp’s clocked in over 19 million.

Ronaldo grabs eyeballs

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo was the sole sportsperson to feature in the list. His tumultuous personal and professional life drew the attention of more than 16 million Wikipedia users.

Ronaldo and his partner Georgina Rodríguez lost one of their twin babies during childbirth in April. “It is with our deepest sadness that we have to announce that our baby boy has passed away. It is the greatest pain that any parent can feel. Only the birth of our baby girl gives us the strength to live this moment with some hope and happiness,” he wrote in a statement on Twitter.

pic.twitter.com/vRNVCoegOW

— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) April 18, 2022

Professionally, Ronaldo had struggled to thrive at Manchester United and spoke publicly about his grievances with the team owners and the coach in an interview, ultimately leaving the club late in November.

RRR, KGF find a spot

In terms of entertainment, the ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel ‘House of the Dragon’, which was released on HBO in August, saw over 16.4 million people visit its Wiki page. Other movies that saw millions of Wiki users include Marvel’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the titular role, Kannada-language film ‘K.G.F: Chapter 2’ starring Yash, Tom Cruise’s ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, S S Rajamouli’s Telugu-language epic ‘RRR’ starring Ram Charan, and Robert Pattinson’s ‘The Batman’.

Explaining its methodology, Wikipedia said that its list of top 25 most-visited pages has been filtered for spam and accidental visits by “cross-referencing the data against the percentage of mobile views and the percentage of articles without a referrer.”

“Any articles with less than 10% or more than 95% mobile views have been removed, as that correlates strongly with spam, botnets, or other concerns,” it said.

“Any articles where more than 50% of its pageviews came from no referrer were removed. This affected articles like Google and YouTube, and we found similar issues with other articles for large websites, even those that fell outside the top 25. We suspect that a significant number of these pageviews are mistakes that occur when viewers are trying to access those websites,” it added.

Here’s the full list of the top 25 most-visited pages on Wikipedia.

1. Jeffrey Dahmer; 52,650,755 pageviews
2. 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; 47,484,468
3. Elizabeth II; 42,621,493
4. Deaths in 2022; 41,097,213
5. 2022 FIFA World Cup; 30,776,846
6. Elon Musk; 25,495,987
7. Vladimir Putin; 24,664,863
8. Charles III; 22,924,971
9. Ukraine; 22,386,748
10. Amber Heard; 19,544,593
11. Johnny Depp; 19,067,943
12. Russo-Ukrainian War; 17,508,406
13. United States; 17,090,544
14. House of the Dragon; 16,421,891
15. Anna Sorokin; 16,366,299
16. Cristiano Ronaldo; 16,154,866
17. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness; 15,982,987
18. K.G.F:Chapter 2; 15,954,912
19. Top Gun: Maverick; 15,858,877
20. RRR (film); 15,594,732
21. Elvis Presley; 15,391,295
22. Rishi Sunak; 15,143,128
23. The Batman (film): 14,835,022
24. Volodymyr Zelenskyy; 14,093,848
25. George VI; 13,923,619