The Signpost

Traffic report

Jump back, what's that sound?

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Kingsif, Mcrsftdog, Maka the Two Star Meister and Rebestalic.

I heard the news, baby, lots about a disease.
But you won't read it about here, baby.
There are other topics that you need. Oh yeah!
Ain't talking 'bout COVID!
Can't stand the pandemic anymore!
Ain't talking 'bout COVID!
We want our lives from before!

(data taken from the Top 1000 Report)

Trouble by the dozen, stakes have never been higher (September 20 to 26)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 20 to 26, 2020)
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 Amy Coney Barrett 3,475,060 After Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at the age of 87, with a career as a lawyer and justice that inspired a movie and a documentary, another woman was nominated to fill her seat at the Supreme Court, namely Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which could be the Tweeter-in-Chief's final big act before the election in November.
2 Ruth Bader Ginsburg 2,939,448
3 Shooting of Breonna Taylor 2,696,497 Breonna Taylor was shot dead in her own bed by Louisville Metro Police on March 13. The shooting was protested this summer, in conjunction with the George Floyd protests, but the current wave was sparked by a grand jury indicting only one officer for wanton endangerment of Taylor's neighbors.
4 S. P. Balasubrahmanyam 1,924,388 The COVID-19 pandemic is still off the list, but still takes some famous victims, like this prolific Indian musician – he held the Guinness World Record for recording the highest number of songs by a singer with over 42,000 songs!
5 Ratched (TV series) 1,488,145 Ryan Murphy rose to fame with Glee, but apparently really wants to frighten viewers. His latest show, currently on Netflix, takes a page from Hannibal in exploring the origins of a famed villainous character that won its portrayer an Academy Award – in this case, Nurse Ratched (#13) from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
6 Enola Holmes (film) 1,161,239 Netflix came to the rescue of a movie that if not for the pandemic would've probably earned a theatrical release, adapting the first book of Nancy Springer's The Enola Holmes Mysteries, a series where Sherlock Holmes had a teenage sister and she solves mysteries on her own. Director Harry Bradbeer was responsible for another work revolving around an English woman who breaks the fourth wall a lot, but thankfully, unlike Fleabag, Enola Holmes is actually good.
7 Schitt's Creek 933,431 Splitting the latest Netflix hit and its main star is the big winner of this year's Emmys, a Canadian comedy where a formerly wealthy family is forced to relocate to the title location, a small town they once purchased as a joke.
8 Millie Bobby Brown 770,917 One year after co-starring in a Legendary Pictures movie about some overgrown lizard, this English actress got another job from that production company. Only this time, the movie (#6) couldn't hit theaters and had to go to the same streaming service that launched Brown's career by making her play a weird kid with a numerical name.
9 Deaths in 2020 768,735 And now the end is near,
And so I face the final curtain...
10 Dan Levy (Canadian actor) 723,140 One of the two co-creators of #7, alongside his father Eugene Levy, Dan had a great night at the Emmys, with four awards including Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series playing David Rose, a pansexual spoiled child who has to adjust once his life goes riches-to-rags.

Well, they say it's kinda frightnin', how this younger generation swings (September 27 to October 3)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (September 27 to October 3, 2020)
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 Proud Boys 3,156,661 A right wing organization, founded by Gavin McInnes (with a name, believe it or not, originating from a Disney song), that has been involved in violence during the George Floyd protests in Portland and Seattle. At the first debate, Trump (#6) was asked to denounce right wing violence, but instead told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." He later said he had never heard of them. The Proud Boys listened. So did the gay community, who responded by posting "Pride/Proud Boys" images on social media to drown out the associated hashtags.
2 Amy Coney Barrett 2,031,099 Trump's nominee to fill #25's Supreme Court seat. A reception for her was held in the White House Rose Garden on September 26, which may have led to a COVID-19 outbreak; Barrett herself tested negative.
3 Joe Biden 2,006,956 He's gone up in the election polls, not that they can be taken as golden. He called #6 a clown on live TV broadcast around the world.
4 Watts family murders 1,557,212 Netflix released American Murder: The Family Next Door, a not-Ryan Murphy-created documentary about this crime story on September 30. Looks like people have swapped out musicals for true crime on their TV list.
5 Hope Hicks 1,551,856 A member of the GOP campaign who was the first confirmed case of the misinformation-ridden White House COVID-19 outbreak. It was first said she gave it to everyone else, which is perhaps not true.
6 Donald Trump 1,360,610 What Trump hasn't done this week would be shorter to explain. He was in hospital with COVID-19, not long after being just one part of the worst presidential debate ever. Also, his taxes got released (did you forget about that?) and showed that he paid $0 for 10 of the last 15 years, and only $1500 over 2 years while President.
7 Beau Biden 1,216,530 The sons of #3 were a subject of Trump's rather hate-filled interruptions during the debate.
8 Hunter Biden 1,156,403
9 Enola Holmes (film) 960,934 Henry Cavill has now played another iconic character starting with an S, Sherlock Holmes, even if the title makes clear the subject of this Netflix release is his sister, played by Millie Bobby Brown.
10 Chris Wallace 941,406 This journalist moderated the last presidential debate of 2016, and had the ungrateful job of moderating the first of this year, where #6 interrupted, taunted, and bullied, even leading his opponent (#3) to ask him to shut up.

And in the end, in dreams we will depend (October 4 to 10, 2020)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 4 to 10, 2020)
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 Eddie Van Halen 3,847,894 Dutch expatriate Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was one of the most skilled guitarists ever, as demonstrated by his trademark solo "Eruption", and the music world mourned his death at the age of 65 after years fighting cancer.
2 Kamala Harris 1,943,062 After a terrible debate between the presidential candidates, the one between their running mates was held, and again the Democrat – namely, this Californian senator – turned out to be the better one, if only for how the Republican behaved.
3 Watts family murders 1,908,167 Netflix released American Murder: The Family Next Door, a documentary about this crime story regarding a family man who decided to kill his wife and children in Frederick, Colorado (pictured).
4 Van Halen 1,350,412 Like Santana, a rock band named for its immigrant guitarist (#1) – plus his brother – that achieved great success, to the point a teenage singer was criticized for never having heard of them.
5 Mike Pence 1,289,038 The current vice president showed many of his flaws in his debate against #2, such as repeating many of Trump's false or misleading claims, including that the administration had "always" been truthful about the COVID-19 pandemic, and refusing to commit to accepting the results of the election if the Republicans lose.
6 The Haunting of Bly Manor 1,138,014 The Turn of the Screw had an unpopular adaptation early this year with The Turning, but seems to have gotten the right treatment in this Netflix show (which if the title seems familiar, it's because the same people from The Haunting of Hill House are involved).
7 The Boys (2019 TV series) 947,763 Season 2 has ended, blowing minds (and heads) along the way, and featuring a scene of a Nazi being beaten that everyone approved, including the Nazi. Season 3 (of maybe 5) and a spin-off are confirmed.
8 Wolfgang Van Halen 906,967 #1's son (given Eddie has "Ludwig Van" in his name, he chose another composer for him) who eventually became Van Halen's (#4) bassist at just 15 – replacing a guy who was there for decades but had fallen out of Eddie's graces – and his first wife and "Wolfie"'s mom, an actress who currently hosts cooking shows on the Food Network.
9 Valerie Bertinelli 883,313
10 Donald Trump 837,568 Caught COVID-19, is apparently without symptoms. Though apparently he won't use his recovery to promote hydroxychloroquine, unlike some idiot who likes Trump very much.

Miss the beat, you lose the rhythm, and nothing falls into place, no (October 11 to 17, 2020)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (October 11 to 17, 2020)
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 The Haunting of Bly Manor 2,838,889 The second installment (after Hill House) of the Haunting TV shows, created by Mike Flanagan (pictured), was released on Netflix – everyone's best friend this year – on October 8. It's a horror-lite show based on some of Henry James's works, and has made lead Victoria Pedretti, something of an internet darling.
2 Amy Coney Barrett 1,919,067 Trump's longest lasting effect on the American govenment will be his choices for Supreme Court justices. For those not familiar with the institution, it's a small group of unelected judges that decide on many of America's social issues. Trump's third placement on the Court, Amy Coney Barrett, would mean that Republican appointments will control 6 of 9 seats. At hearings this week, Barrett refused to give her opinions on abortion, LGBT rights, and whether Trump would have to recognize the results of the upcoming Presidential election.
3 LeBron James 1,102,173 James led the Los Angeles Lakers to victory in the 2020 NBA Finals, and was named MVP for the fourth time. Meanwhile, his son Bronny was grounded for smoking marijuana, preventing him from participating in FaZe Clan activities.
4 QAnon 1,077,338 This wide-reaching conspiracy theory has its ideas on everything from how incumbent US President Donald Trump is being attacked by a deep-state cabal and paedophiles to how the 2020 Western United States wildfire season started. QAnon kicked off in 2017 with posts, or 'Q drops', by an author called 'Q' (hence the name). It has since spread from shady social media platforms like 4chan to mainstream social media platforms like Twitter. Facebook doesn't like it, and has promised to essentially ban QAnon from existence there, and YouTube is also targeting it. Hardships experienced by all sorts of things caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have made things worse.
5 Harshad Mehta 848,833 Everyone loves a good scam! This guy was the principal actor of the 1992 Indian stock market scam. This week a movie / web series Scam 1992 ended up drawing a new generation to his story and to his wikipage.
6 Deaths in 2020 794,250 The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
7 Conchata Ferrell 762,663 The beloved character actress best known for Two and a Half Men died on October 12.
8 The Boys (2019 TV series) 740,646 The spin-off Supe-Porn was informally announced on October 3 and took a while to register on peoples' radar. It is exactly what it sounds like.
9 Rafael Nadal 738,487 The Spanish clay court specialist just won the French Open, again.
10 Watts family murders 676,359 People are still fascinated with the documentary about this, released in September.

Non-stop talker, what a rocker (October 18 to 25, 2020)

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 Kristen Welker 1,443,494 The moderator for the last of the 2020 US presidential debates, with election day rapidly approaching. Welker's performance was praised by members of both parties.
2 The Haunting of Bly Manor 1,252,492 Victoria Pedretti has been through a lot in just two years: traumatized by a haunted house, part of the Manson family, stalked by a psycho... and now she deals with creepy orphans in this adaptation of The Turn of the Screw.
3 Sacha Baron Cohen 1,215,348 Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the sequel to the 2006 mockumentary film Borat (#19), was released to Amazon Prime Video on October 23. The film features Borat Sagdiyev (Baron Cohen), a Kazakh television host, travelling America with his teenage daughter (played by Maria Bakalova).

Baron Cohen also starred as one of #6 in #9. I haven't seen it, but I assume it's hilarious.

4 Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 1,198,795
5 Joe Biden 1,110,580 Biden is the Democratic nominee for President this year, and (at the time of writing) is just over a week away from facing off against President Trump. The polls are looking good for Biden, with Five Thirty-Eight giving him an 83% chance of victory.
6 Chicago Seven 1,096,352 The Chicago Seven were a group of seven (eight if you include Bobby Seale) public figures charged with crossing state lines to incite the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests. At the time, it was seen as a show trial by the Nixon Justice Department, and now, it's been dramatized for Netflix.
7 Three Red Banners 928,659 The logo of the Biden campaign (pictured here) has three red lines. A meme comparing this to a Maoist slogan is, apparently, very popular.
8 Harshad Mehta 907,204 The perpetrator of the 1992 Indian stock market scam is the subject of the appropriately titled SonyLIV series Scam 1992.
9 The Trial of the Chicago 7 872,083 Aaron Sorkin's retelling of the trial of #6 was released to Netflix on October 16. As one of the only movies to come out this year, it's probably gonna walk away with 3 Oscars.
10 Khabib Nurmagomedov 801,099 Better to leave at the top, thought this Russian MMA fighter who decided to retire with an undefeated record (something probably harder to do on MMA than boxing, where there's at least Rocky Marciano and Floyd Mayweather Jr.) of 29 wins after the latest UFC event, where he beat Justin Gaethje.

Exclusions

  • These lists exclude the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.
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Yeah, some of the memes are actually the purest nonsense! Of course the graphic designer who made the campaign logo needed a visual eye catcher. And red is known to do that job best. BTW the number of young persons wearing red sneakers in my urban environment is increasingly high. -- Just N. (talk) 17:15, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My second idea about the meme is a lot uglier. Aren' t a lot of American citizens/voters haunted by fear of any sort of socialism and hating China for *stealing* the inofficial No 1 position of leading world economy from the US? So by putting the Dems campaign logo into ugly framing context the anti-communist emotions are whipped up, at least in Republican readers. Indeed an ugly manipulation by drawing on mostly subconscious political emotion layers -> just by means of a socmedia meme. -- Just N. (talk) 17:34, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

















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