Charlie Kirk leads Wikipedia's 2025 most-read list with nearly 45 million views

[midian182]

In a nutshell: Wikipedia has released its 11th annual list of the most-read articles throughout the year. In 2025, people spent an estimated 2.4 billion hours reading English Wikipedia articles. The most popular entry? Charlie Kirk's page.

In the day after his assassination at a university campus in December, Kirk's Wikipedia page was viewed 15 million times, or an average of over 170 times per second.

Across the whole of 2025, Kirk's page was visited almost 45 million times – 43% of these came from outside the US. While he was a well-known figure in his homeland, many outside of the country were unfamiliar with his name before the shooting, which made headlines around the world.

Wikipedia's second most-read article (42.5 million views) was Deaths in 2025. It's no surprise to see this entry as it's never been lower than third on the organization's annual list of most-read articles; the page was Wikipedia's most-read article last year.

Next was Ed Gein's page, which had 31.2 million views. Interest in the US serial killer surged following the release of Netflix's third season of Monster, in which Charlie Hunnam played the Butcher of Plainfield himself.

Other notable entries include Donald Trump in fourth (25.1 million) and Elon Musk in sixth (20.1 million). Since 2015, the only times the English Wikipedia article about Trump has not appeared in the list was in 2022 and 2023.

Making up the rest of the top ten are Pope Leo XIV in fifth (22 million) – the first Pope to have been born in the US. After the Catholic Church selected the successor to Pope Francis, traffic to all Wikimedia projects peaked at around 800,000 hits per second – more than 6x normal traffic levels and a new all-time record – as people searched for information about the new Pope online.

Elsewhere, New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is seventh (20.1 million), and legendary heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, who passed away in July, is ninth (17.7 million).

The remaining two spots in the top ten are taken by movies. Ryan Coogler's 1930s-set vampire horror Sinners is eighth (18.2 million), while James Gunn's 2025 Superman is tenth (17 million).

The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, writes that 250,000 volunteers keep the site updated. On January 15, the internet's knowledge repository will celebrate its 25th birthday.

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Charlie Kirk leads Wikipedia's 2025 most-read list with nearly 45 million views

 

[bviktor]

What a sad list with few exceptions...

 

[Kirby1]

This is bait. Don't do it.

 

[RudyBob]

Who croaked is always of interest to me. I am sorry Kirk is on that list. He was an exceptional force for good and the opposition knew it

 

[3volv3d]

Who croaked is always of interest to me. I am sorry Kirk is on that list. He was an exceptional force for good and the opposition knew it

Earlier commenter said don't do it.
For someone who claimed to be a Christian I saw a clip of him ask for the death of Biden.
So not all that good.
And now I've taken the bait. Chow down.

 

[Kashim]

Who croaked is always of interest to me. I am sorry Kirk is on that list. He was an exceptional force for good and the opposition knew it

Maybe you can explain something to me. When a conservative nutjob shoots up a school, church, theater, etc. conservatives are very quick to distance themselves from it. It's just a lone gunman and it has nothing to do with gun control or conservatives at all. The gunman is the only one to blame and no one else.

But when a liberal shoots someone conservatives like, why is it that every single liberal is to blame? They don't talk about the gunman as "him" or "his", etc. it's always "them" and "they". If a liberal shoots someone it's the fault of ALL democrats and they're ALL to blame for one person's action. Why is that?

 

[RudyBob]

Maybe you can explain something to me. When a conservative nutjob shoots up a school, church, theater, etc. conservatives are very quick to distance themselves from it. It's just a lone gunman and it has nothing to do with gun control or conservatives at all. The gunman is the only one to blame and no one else.

But when a liberal shoots someone conservatives like, why is it that every single liberal is to blame? They don't talk about the gunman as "him" or "his", etc. it's always "them" and "they". If a liberal shoots someone it's the fault of ALL democrats and they're ALL to blame for one person's action. Why is that?

What conservative nut job has shot anything up? List two and I will list 10 that were committed by leftists and much more recent. You are a fallacy

 

[Win7User]

Wikipedia, can be edited by anyone. How, could that be honest news?

 

[RudyBob]

Earlier commenter said don't do it.
For someone who claimed to be a Christian I saw a clip of him ask for the death of Biden.
So not all that good.
And now I've taken the bait. Chow down.

You don't know what it means to be a Christian. You only know how to put the word in a sentence and think it is a meaningful statement that expresses your superior morality.

 

[scavengerspc]

You don't know what it means to be a Christian

Even if true, MAGAs are worse. On every subject that determines humanity and responsibility. And their affection for people like Kirk are proof positive.
Don't get me wrong, murder is wrong, even Kirks murder is absolutely heinous.
But the world is a better place without him.

And now, as a gift, a quote from the MAGA "Christian" bible:
"And Jesus sayeth to the sick, make sure to have your insurance card ready"

So thanks for reminding me, while I love Christianity, I absolutely can't stomach Christians.

 

[RudyBob]

Even if true, MAGAs are worse. On every subject that determines humanity and responsibility. And their affection for people like Kirk are proof positive.
Don't get me wrong, murder is wrong, even Kirks murder is absolutely heinous.
But the world is a better place without him.

And now, as a gift, a quote from the MAGA "Christian" bible:
"And Jesus sayeth to the sick, make sure to have your insurance card ready"

So thanks for reminding me, while I love Christianity, I absolutely can't stomach Christians.

Nothing wrong with making America Great Again unless you just think you are an American as I described for that alleged Christian expert.

 

[scavengerspc]

Nothing wrong with making America Great Again unless you just think you are an American as I described for that alleged Christian expert.

MAGAts are making America a lot of things, great is not even close to being one of them.
And now our garbage in chief and his staff are committing war crimes.

And the only reason "that Christian expert" @3volv3d is someone you look down on is because he is probably one of those people that gets his Christianity from the Bible.

 

[New Day]

Come on Rudy, you know what happens to golden calf worshippers. Libs, bless their souls, will get to stay albeit in a modified configuration. Your ilk will just GET ERASED.

I have come in part to WITNESS this.

You don't know what it means to be a Christian. You only know how to put the word in a sentence and think it is a meaningful statement that expresses your superior morality.

 

[scavengerspc]

I have come in part to WITNESS this.

MAGAs witness a lot of things, but end up going with how they were raised, and lie about it.

 

[captaincranky]

"In the day after his assassination at a university campus in December, Kirk's Wikipedia page was viewed In the day after his assassination at a university campus in December, Kirk's Wikipedia page was viewed 15 million times, or an average of over 170 times per second., or an average of over 170 times per second."

In and of itself, this statistic is somewhat meaningless. The valuable stat would be, "how many people clicked because they were heartbroken because he's gone", and how many clicks were trying to find out how monumental a piece of sh!t he was, and how the world is better off without him.

BTW, his poser wife is now pimping off the same hokey, imitation, perverted christian, bullsh!t

 

[captaincranky]

MAGAs witness a lot of things, but end up going with how they were raised, and lie about it.

Yeah. Although, it's really unfortunate they can't witness their own gullibility, stupidity, and self righteousness.

They regurgitate the ramblings of a sad, demented, sociopathic, pathologically lying conman, along with the latest on faux news, and imagine it was all their idea.

 

[captaincranky]

Nothing wrong with making America Great Again unless you just think you are an American as I described for that alleged Christian expert.

Oddly, I had been thinking that America already was great. Then some corrupt conman doofus came along and said that it wasn't. The only difference between us is the fact you bought into it, and I didn't.

But how about if you "enlighten me". Let me get my hat squared away before you start.....