Danse Macabre

The ancient allegory of the Danse Macabre is there to remind us that, rich or poor, emperor or fool, we must all take the final dance. And there will only be one partner. Death is the great equalizer; the one event we must all share. With so many on the programme in the last few weeks, not only the iconic David Bowie but Alan Rickman, Lemmy, Natalie Cole, René Angélil and subsequently, The Eagles's Glenn Frey, this list, on which Death has always been a welcome guest, has taken on the pall of the dance itself. Bereavement is also often seen as a shared emotion; justifiably or not, we seek to share in the grief of others as if it were our own, whether it be Celine Dion, who lost two loved ones in the space of three days, or Iman, who lost a husband, or Duncan Jones, who lost a father. We feel the need to work through the grief of loss by understanding, and remembering.

For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of 10 to 16 January 2016, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	David Bowie		11,772,266		Contrary to popular belief, chameleons do not change colour to match their surroundings; they change colour to reflect their mood and their relationships with others. From the moment that David Robert Jones changed his name to David Bowie, he proved himself chameleonic in the true sense. His career was a kaleidoscope of reinventions; not just of music and appearance but of persona, profession and gender identity, each time anticipating the reactions of his audience, and usually forcing them to catch up with him. Fiercely intelligent and unafraid to show it, he also anticipated the effects of technological change, releasing Space Oddity five days before the launch of Apollo 11, and using the Internet to interact with fans years before the age of social media. His work as an actor also frequently ran leaps ahead of audiences, whether as an alien in Nicolas Roeg's initially ill-regarded but now lauded The Man Who Fell To Earth, or as Jareth the Goblin King in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, a critical bomb that would go on to become a fixture of children's video libraries, and earn him an entire new generation of fans. But his death this week at the age of 69 may prove his greatest leap ahead yet; while ill with cancer for the preceding 18 months, he refused to publicise his condition and instead used his last time on Earth to compose Blackstar, one of his best reviewed albums in decades. Just as Bowie lived as art, he died as art, and the video for Lazarus, the second single from Blackstar, which featured a suddenly aged Bowie blindfolded on a hospital bed, would become an epitaph to the world. Once again, we had to catch up with him, and the shock of his unexpected death shivered across his pan-generational fanbase, pushing Blackstar to #1 in the US album chart, astoundingly for the first time, and giving him not only the highest single-day tally of Youtube VEVO views ever recorded, but also, incidentally, the first ever eight-figure weekly Wikipedia viewcount.
2	Alan Rickman		4,863,327		This week saw the unexpected passing of two beloved British cultural icons, and had Alan Rickman died at any other time, he doubtless would have claimed the top spot. While Rickman may not have had Bowie's cross-generational hold (he came to stardom relatively late in life, at 42, as Die Hard villain Hans Gruber) his performance as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series made him an unlikely sex god to a million Millennial fangirls. His height (he was 1.85 m tall), aquiline features and distinctive voice (a low, deep rumble often compared to the purr of a cat) made him perhaps the most natural British villain since Christopher Lee, though he always insisted he didn't play villains, but "very interesting people". A true romantic in real life (he remained with his childhood sweetheart until his death) he seldom got the chance to play such roles on film, though he did in such films as Truly, Madly, Deeply and Sense and Sensibility.
3	Iman (model)		2,515,227		Rock stars aren't exactly known for successful, stable romantic relationships, and yet this Somali model was by all accounts happily married to David Bowie for nearly 25 years.
4	The Revenant (2015 film)		2,186,969		Alejandro González Iñárritu's Western survival epic starring Leonardo di Caprio (pictured) has earned nearly $100 million in its first 12 days of wide release, and has scored 12 Oscar nominations.
5	Duncan Jones		1,939,421		How do you rebel when your dad's David Bowie? Well if you're Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones and your dad insists on calling you "Zowie Bowie", you stick to the most determinedly normal parts of your name and become a successful mainstream Hollywood filmmaker. Already lauded for his thoughtful science fiction story Moon, Jones will release the biggest film of his career this year, the adaptation of the massively popular video game franchise Warcraft. While there is never an opportune time to lose a loved one, for Jones, it's hard to imagine a less opportune time than now.
6	Steven Avery		1,535,415		Down from #1 and 2 million views last week. Avery is an American prisoner who is the subject of the popular new Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer which was released on December 18. (Episode 1 is available free on YouTube.) Avery served 18 years in prison, from 1985–2003, after being framed by the local police for a sexual assault he plainly did not commit. During his subsequent civil lawsuit for compensation, during a period of explosive depositions, he was charged with the murder of a local photographer, and later convicted. I am in the midst of watching this show and highly recommend it, as does a large swath of the internet. Interestingly, his Wikipedia article was created on November 11, 2005, a few days after his arrest for the murder charge.
7	Charles Perrault		1,320,925		Under the name Mother Goose, Perrault was the originator of the most popular versions of fairy tales like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Red Riding Hood. He got a well-deserved Google Doodle for his 388th birthday on 12 January.
8	Star Wars: The Force Awakens		1,254,180		The reignition of the Star Wars franchise crossed the elite $1 billion worldwide milestone this week.
9	Leonardo DiCaprio		1,224,706		After pushing himself about as far as he can reasonably be expected to go in The Revenant (see #4), the popular actor is building up steam for an Oscar win after a Golden Globe and a handful of critics' awards.
10	Angela Bowie		1,169,212		In a strange quirk of fate that could only happen nowadays, David Bowie's first wife and mother of Duncan Jones (see #5) heard of her ex-husband's death while on the current series of Celebrity Big Brother.

← Previous "Traffic report"

Next "Traffic report" →

In this issue

20 January 2016 (all comments)

News and notes

Op-ed

In the media

Traffic report

Featured content

Blog

+ Add a comment

Discuss this story

These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache.

• For formatting reasons, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to put the notes in a second row under each rank. I.e. something like this:

Rank	Article	Class	Views
	Notes
1	David Bowie		11,772,266
	Contrary to popular belief, chameleons do not change colour to match their surroundings; they change colour to reflect their mood and their relationships with others. From the moment that David Robert Jones changed his name to David Bowie, he proved himself chameleonic in the true sense. His career was a kaleidoscope of reinventions; not just of music and appearance but of persona, profession and gender identity, each time anticipating the reactions of his audience, and usually forcing them to catch up with him. Fiercely intelligent and unafraid to show it, he also anticipated the effects of technological change, releasing Space Oddity five days before the launch of Apollo 11, and using the Internet to interact with fans years before the age of social media. His work as an actor also frequently ran leaps ahead of audiences, whether as an alien in Nicolas Roeg's initially ill-regarded but now lauded The Man Who Fell To Earth, or as Jareth the Goblin King in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, a critical bomb that would go on to become a fixture of children's video libraries, and earn him an entire new generation of fans. But his death this week at the age of 69 may prove his greatest leap ahead yet; while ill with cancer for the preceding 18 months, he refused to publicise his condition and instead used his last time on Earth to compose Blackstar, one of his best reviewed albums in decades. Just as Bowie lived as art, he died as art, and the video for Lazarus, the second single from Blackstar, which featured a suddenly aged Bowie blindfolded on a hospital bed, would become an epitaph to the world. Once again, we had to catch up with him, and the shock of his unexpected death shivered across his pan-generational fanbase, pushing Blackstar to #1 in the US album chart, astoundingly for the first time, and giving him not only the highest single-day tally of Youtube VEVO views ever recorded, but also, incidentally, the first ever eight-figure weekly Wikipedia viewcount.

That becomes very difficult to read in widescreen. Serendi^podous 22:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]