The Signpost took a break last month, but given the weekly report on Wikipedia's most viewed didn't stop, we have two months to cover.
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 93rd Academy Awards |  | 1,571,338 | %2c_Union_Station_--_2012_--_4938.jpg) | The goddamned pandemic derailed the film industry, yetAMPAS still decided to award the best productions of 2020 (and early 2021). One of the major jibes before the ceremony got started was its choice of main location, atrain station (pictured), and it only got worse from there. The Oscars, adamantly refusing to use Zoom (or similar) after the less than successful early awards ceremonies, was in-person only, though they added hubs in London and Paris so nominees that didn't want to (or, couldn't) go to Los Angeles could attend. It certainly felt more like theGolden Globes in a normal year with its audience at tables and such. Except they weren't drunk, nor particularly excited. The screen ban also meant there were no clips played before categories, and both the hosts and the In Memoriam seemed to be rushing to get home. So, between the average moviegoer having not seen the nominees and and a fairly uninteresting ceremony, it translated into the lowest ratings ever. |
| 2 | Mortal Kombat (2021 film) |  | 1,563,890 | .jpg) | 24 years after the disastrousMortal Kombat: Annihilation, the ultraviolent fighting game series returned to theaters (andHBO Max) giving everything fans hoped for, namely lots of people punching each other, good special effects, mostly accurate portrayals of their beloved characters, and dialogue featuring things such as "Fatality!", "Flawless Victory!" and "GET OVER HERE!" HenceMortal Kombat already recouped its $55 million budget even with not as many screens available. |
| 3 | Nomadland (film) |  | 1,449,019 |  | One of the weirdest things in #1 was that the top category, Best Picture, was the third-to-last instead of the big prize at the end.[a] Its winner was the adaptation ofa non-fiction book about a woman who decides to spend her days |
| 4 | Rohit Sardana | | 1,331,967 | From Hollywood to India, where a local TV anchor died at just 41 from a heart attack. | |
| 5 | 2021 NFL Draft | | 1,309,263 |  | American football got its latest college athletes, with theJacksonville Jaguars using their #1 pick onTrevor Lawrence. |
| 6 | Shadow and Bone | | 1,267,141 |  | Netflix has released a new series adapting a fantasy novel byLeigh Bardugo (pictured), following Alina Starkov (played byJessie Mei Li) as she discovers she has the power to set her country free from the fold, a perpetually dark, barren strip of land cutting the country in two. |
| 7 | Shadow and Bone (TV series) | | 1,134,244 | ||
| 8 | Frances McDormand | | 983,409 | .jpg) | Best Actress at #1 came to this talented thespian for #3, a near-record third time (only behindKatherine Hepburn's four; counting the Supporting category, she now has as many Oscars asMeryl Streep!), followinga pregnant policewoman from the middle of nowhere (where the director was husbandJoel Coen) andan angry mother exploiting outdoor advertisement. McDormand also got a second statuette as the film's co-producer, and celebrated that win byhowling! Here she's pictured witha different award she won thrice. |
| 9 | Deaths in 2021 |  | 960,124 |  | Given the In Memoriam at #1(speedily) used this song: Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea (Always) Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream |
| 10 | Chloé Zhao | | 925,572 |  | For only the second time, Best Director went to a woman, the one responsible for #3. And Ms. Zhao's next movie will certainly show if she can do action as well as fellow winnerKathryn Bigelow, namely Marvel'sEternals. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bill Gates |  | 1,371,353 | .jpg) | The billionaire couple announced their divorce this week, after 27 years of marriage and 34 years as a couple. The divorce appears to be amicable and they have said that they will continue to work together ontheir foundation. |
| 2 | Melinda French Gates | | 1,027,961 | ||
| 3 | Deaths in 2021 | | 926,892 |  | Lay me down Let the only sound Be the overflow... |
| 4 | Invincible (TV series) | | 744,955 | .jpg) | The final episode of the first series aired on April 29. It has proved so popular that a further two series of this family-unfriendly animated superhero show were confirmed on April 30. |
| 5 | Resident Evil Village | | 730,516 | _%25E2%2580%25A2_1.jpg) | Capcom's seminalsurvival horror series returned for its eight mainline title (in fact, the cover art shows there's a "VIII" hidden in "Village"), wherethe unlucky bastard who sought his wife inthe seventh game now tries to rescue his daughter from inhuman creatures. And given the setting is Transylvania, of course there's vampires,whose leader caused quite the impact upon her reveal in a demo. |
| 6 | Cinco de Mayo | | 703,801 |  | The annual celebration held on May 5, celebratingMexico's victory overFrance at theBattle of Puebla in 1862. |
| 7 | Elon Musk | | 695,271 |  | #1 used to be the richest man in the world, now it's this guy, who hostedSaturday Night Live. Not the first entrepreneur to have done so, but most people would rather forgetthe previous one. |
| 8 | 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election | | 691,857 |  | The election in this east Indian state was held April 27–29, with the results being announced this week.All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) increased their majority. The election was marred by violence, with opposition parties claiming the violence was conducted by the AITC against them. |
| 9 | Dogecoin | | 679,762 | Showing how fickle the cryptocurrency market is, #7 made jokes about the memetic dog-themed one he champions onSNL (on his opening monologue, Musk brought his mom on stage, who said she expected her Mother's Day gift to not be Dogecoin; and onWeekend Update,Musk appeared as a cryptocurrency expert who was questioned thrice by hostMichael Che about Dogecoin) and its value fell 37%! Perhaps to compensate, right after the week covered by this report, Musk'sSpaceX announced a Dogecoin-funded mission. | |
| 10 | Mamata Banerjee | | 673,257 | .jpg) | Despite losing her seat in theWest Bengal Legislative Assembly, her party won the most seats in#8 and she remains theChief Minister of West Bengal. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elon Musk | | 2,023,222 |  | Billionaire Memeguy hostedSaturday Night Live on May 8. His fans thought his was the best episode ever; his detractors thought it was as unfunny as anything modernSNL puts out. Musk also managed to crash two cryptocurrencies in one week—doge- crashing after a (presumably failed) plug onSNL, andbit- crashing afterTesla announced it would no longer be accepted as payment. |
| 2 | State of Palestine | | 1,543,993 |   | In this week, protests over theeviction of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem escalated into countless missile strikes on theGaza Strip. |
| 3 | Israeli–Palestinian conflict | | 1,473,599 | ||
| 4 | Israel | | 1,445,058 | ||
| 5 | Hamas | | 1,206,073 | ||
| 6 | Iron Dome | | 1,043,060 | ||
| 7 | Gaza Strip | | 1,003,236 | ||
| 8 | Jupiter's Legacy (TV series) | | 983,196 | .jpg) | What if a superhero was morally grey? What if they, get this,killed people? That'd be crazy.Jupiter's Legacy, the first piece of media to ever explore this concept, premiered on Netflix on May 7. |
| 9 | Deaths in 2021 | | 937,721 | .jpg) | Well, I'll die as I stand here today Knowing that deep in my heart They'll fall to ruin one day |
| 10 | Radhe (2021 film) | | 924,247 |  | India has sadly been going through a huge spike in cases of the pandemic, so the latest Bollywood blockbuster had to be released digitally (though foreign markets got it in theaters). |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eurovision Song Contest 2021 | | 1,595,667 |  | The annual (if one forgets2020, as many would like to do; at most there wasthat Will Ferrell comedy, that probably brought in bigger non-European interest this year) competition took place inRotterdam this year, in a venue that housed a COVID field hospital. As ever, Eurovision was pretty crazy, with highlights including vaporwave backgrounds, some of the most poorly executed green screening, and some guy who wouldn't put a shirt on. The winner:Italy, who sent the alt rock bandMåneskin (including topless dude). The loser:the UK, who managed to getnil points. Twice. |
| 2 | Halston | | 1,523,384 | .jpg) | Ewan McGregor plays Halston (1932–1990), a mononymous fashion designer and eponymous subject ofa Netflix miniseries that is proof thatRyan Murphy can produce shows about literally anything (aslongastheyincludefashion). |
| 3 | State of Palestine | | 1,433,840 | _in_its_region.svg) | A second week of the conflict caused the State of Palestine to be third on our list, along with several other related articles. |
| 4 | Army of the Dead | | 1,206,852 |  | Before his foray into comic book adaptations,Zack Snyder started his film career remakingDawn of the Dead. So here's him back into zombies (in fact, it's apparently based on an idea he had while working on the remake), namely a Netflix original whereDave Bautista leads a team trying to steal a Las Vegas casino's vault before the city is nuked to contain its undead infestation. |
| 5 | Israel | | 1,120,843 | | A truce closed offthe most recent flare-up of the decades-long conflict after 15 days. |
| 6 | Israeli–Palestinian conflict | | 1,026,543 |  | |
| 7 | Hamas | | 992,010 | ||
| 8 | Deaths in 2021 | | 886,710 | _(7029883419).jpg) | Breathing, is the hardest thing to do With all I've said And all that's dead for you |
| 9 | The Woman in the Window (2021 film) | | 866,684 | .jpg) | This schlocky modern retelling ofHitchcock'sRear Window, starringAmy Adams, made its way to Netflix on May 14. |
| 10 | Mare of Easttown | | 824,532 | _(cropped).jpg) | HBO continues to air this show aboutKate Winslet as detective Mare, who returns toEasttown Township to investigate a murder. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Army of the Dead | | 1,584,244 |  | Zack Snyder's newest film, released to Netflix on May 21, starsDave Bautista,Ella Purnell, and a digitally-superimposedTig Notaro. The plot's about a crew breaking into a zombie-infested Las Vegas to retrieve millions of dollars before the place is nuked, but it's also about a father reconnecting with his estranged daughter—read into that what you will. |
| 2 | Eternals (film) | | 1,029,757 | .jpg) | The first trailer for this MCU film—fromNomadland directorChloé Zhao—was released on Monday. If you're wondering how an Oscar winning director makes a Marvel movie, just take it from producerKevin Feige:
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| 3 | Phil Mickelson | | 989,739 |  | Mickelson won the2021 PGA Championship on May 23; at the age of 50, he's the oldest person to ever win amen's major golf championship |
| 4 | Matthew Perry | | 989,188 |  | In the years betweenFriends andThe Reunion,Chandler starred inStudio 60 on the Sunset Strip,Mr. Sunshine,Go On,The Odd Couple,17 Again andFallout: New Vegas. He also tried to fend off the addiction to prescription drugs that hit him while doing the show. |
| 5 | Eurovision Song Contest 2021 | | 945,167 |  | After the pandemic ensured the only Eurovision Song Contest in 2020was the one with Will Ferrell, the music extravaganza featuring the best and most bombastic of Europe (and Australia) made a glorious return. |
| 6 | Deaths in 2021 | | 894,293 |  | I won't stay quiet, I won't stay quiet Cause staying silent's the same as dying |
| 7 | Mare of Easttown | | 819,701 | .jpg) | John Oliver joked that this series about a murder investigation is the only thing as white and depressing as the current backdrop ofhis show. And now there's only episode left for it. |
| 8 | Måneskin | | 818,137 |  | This Italian rock band won the Eurovision Song Contest with their song "Zitti e buoni." |
| 9 | Friends: The Reunion | | 736,524 |  | This special, starring the cast of the really big 90s–00s sitcom, premiered onHBO Max on Thursday. The guestlist included people who had appeared on the original series, as well asMalala,BTS,Justin Bieber, andLady Gaga. |
| 10 | Elliot Page | | 716,745 |  | Page, star ofJuno andThe Umbrella Academy, came out as a trans man at the end of last year. On Monday, he posted his first post-top surgery shirtless photo. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mare of Easttown | | 1,232,548 |  | Writing/reading this Report, a pattern can be noted that articles on TV shows enter right as the season starts, and either remain steady or lose visits with more episodes, with the only thing that raises views being the season finale. This HBO drama starringKate Winslet as a policewoman with a fractured home life investigating a murder managed to invert it, asMare of Easttown only earned a slot by the third episode and has only grown since then, with the miniseries closer managing to the top the list – which is also a reflection ofits actual ratings, with the seventh having nearly a million more viewers compared to the first! |
| 2 | Tulsa race massacre | | 1,178,663 |  | On May 31 and June 1, 1921, the Black population ofTulsa, Oklahoma was devastated by attacks from a White mob. Hundreds were killed, thousands were left homeless, and the prosperousGreenwood District—known as "Black Wall Street"—was destroyed. The massacre was left out of American popular history until relatively recently; the revival probably owes a lot to HBO, as both the2019Watchmen miniseries andlast year'sLovecraft Country both featured the events. 2020 also had the unfortunate coincidence of last year'sGeorge Floyd protests being at their height on the anniversary of the massacre. |
| 3 | Deaths in 2021 | | 951,295 |  | To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. |
| 4 | A Quiet Place Part II | | 874,861 | .jpg) | Shh! TheJohn Krasinski-directed horror flickA Quiet Place, about a family (led by himself and real life wifeEmily Blunt) who must live their lives in silence to avoid killer aliens with amazing hearing, earned itself critical and audience acclaim as well as beaucoup bucks. It got itself a sequel, but does anyone else kind of hate it when they just slap "Part 2" in front of things? It could've beenA Quieter Place, orA Quiet Place: Hold Your Breath, orA Quiet Place: Please Would You Kindly Shut The Heck Up. In any case,Jim Halpert seems to have avoided the sophomore slump with this oneif online ratings are to be believed. |
| 5 | Cruella (film) | | 856,457 | .jpg) | The newestJoker movie, starringEmma Stone asa campy performance artist/fashion artist/mastermind criminal that willone day skin Dalmatians, was released to theatres and Disney+ on May 28. |
| 6 | The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It | | 830,910 | .jpg) | This horror movie based on thetrial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson was released to theatres and HBO Max on Friday. |
| 7 | Matthew Perry | | 742,353 | | Many viewers oftheFriends reunion were worried about Perry after a withdrawn performance. During the show he admitted to anxiety surrounding how many laughs he would get. He has since announced that he and his fiancé had split after 4 years. |
| 8 | Naomi Osaka | | 709,447 | Osaka was fined $15,000 for not giving a press conference after her first game in theFrench Open; the next day she withdrew, citing her mental health. | |
| 9 | Frank Kameny | | 708,859 | .jpg) | In 1957, Kameny was fired from theArmy Map Service after his superiors learned of his homosexuality. He unsuccessfully fought this in the courts, and afterwards became a gay rights activist. The late Kameny, andpride month itself, was commemorated with a Google Doodle on Wednesday. |
| 10 | The Family Man (Indian TV series) | | 682,356 |  | Prime Video has released this thriller starringManoj Bajpayee as a middle-class man secretly working as an intelligence officer forIndia's counter-terrorist task force. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UEFA Euro 2020 | | 1,725,754 | .jpg) | After one year of delay, the 60th anniversary of Europe's football tournament between nations started on June 11. As of this report's cutoff, 4 games have been played. The only surprising result from these 4 isFinland beatingDenmark (pictured isJoel Pohjanpalo, who scored the winning goal) However, given the circumstances (see below) the result is less surprising. |
| 2 | Christian Eriksen | | 1,553,804 | .jpg) | TheDanish international footballer suffered a suspected cardiac arrest in the tail end of the first half of a match againstFinland, their opening match as part of #1. The match was immediately suspended while his team mates formed a protective buble around Eriksen and medics performed CPR. After approximately 15 minutes Erikson was transferred to hospital, where he is said to be stable, conscious and awaiting tests. The match resumed around 2 hours, Denmark's play was noticeably subdued, as were Finland's winning celebrations. |
| 3 | The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It | | 1,079,590 |  | The third sequel to 2013'sThe Conjuring and the whopping eighth installment inThe Conjuring Universe is based on Gerard Brittle's bookThe Devil in Connecticut, written about the demonic trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (#9). |
| 4 | Ed and Lorraine Warren | | 995,545 | _(cropped).jpg) | Okay, so, if you ask me, the escapades recounted by these two ghostbusters (and the protagonists of theConjuring films, in which they're portrayed byPatrick Wilson andVera Farmiga, respectively) have about as much truth to them as when someone drops acid and then tells you they had a conversation with Julius Caesar. But you can't say the tall tales these two have Conjured up about supernatural spirits over the years haven't made for some perfect movie material, considering just how many films the studios have been able to milk from them, including the most recentConjuring installment (#3). |
| 5 | Logan Paul | | 968,238 |  | The slightly less controversial (thoughnotthat much less controversial) half of social media'sPaul brothers has lived many lives both on and off of the internet, first as one ofVine's biggest stars, then as aYouTuber, anactor, asinger, ascreenwriter, and a podcaster. Now,like his brother, he's made his triumphant return to boxing two years afterhis first professional match, going up against none other than Floyd Mayweather Jr. (#9). I didn't watch the fight, thoughaccording to the site you're reading this on, Mayweather may have gone a little easy on him. |
| 6 | Loki (TV series) | | 967,253 | .jpg) | TheMCU machine just keeps on pumping. In thethe first episode of this semi-retconningsci-ficrime thriller, which was released onDisney+ this week,Tom Hiddleston reprises his role as the titularGod of Mischief, introduced in 2011'sThor. He gets captured by theTime Variance Authority, an organization that monitors the timelines of theMultiverse, who deem one of the versions of Loki a threat to the "Sacred Timeline", in which no multiversal war breaks out, and Loki agrees to help stop the alternate, fugitive version of himself from messing up the timeline. Confused? I certainly am! |
| 7 | The Family Man (Indian TV series) | | 960,776 | | The second season of this Indian thriller, starringManoj Bajpayee (pictured) as a middle-class man working for theNational Intelligence Agency who must balance secretly trying to protect the country from terrorists with his tumultuous family life, was released last week onAmazon Prime Video. It continues to yield positive reviews and buzz. |
| 8 | Floyd Mayweather Jr. | | 929,958 |  | A boxer who had a shining professional career, being champion of four weight classes and retiring undefeated after 50 fights. Mayweather returned for an exhibition fight with #5, where him holding back led to showers of boos from the audience. |
| 9 | Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson | | 895,314 |  | Saying "a demon made me kill my landlord" is like a way more extreme version of "my dog ate my homework", but in 1981, that was the excuse given by Arne Cheyenne Johnson and his defense lawyers.You must acquit, I guess. As told in #3, in a story that seems to have been based more on slightly convenient timing and coincidence than truth, the body of an 11-year-old boy named David Glatzel was supposedly being inhabited by a demon, so his family called in ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (#4), who then got the Church to perform an official exorcism on Glatzel. Months later, Johnson killed his landlord, apparently because the demon had relocated from Glatzel's body to Johnson's. Not only is this hilarious because it means the exorcism was a failure, but it also means that the demon waited months to actually do anything demonic. |
| 10 | Sweet Tooth (TV series) | | 810,631 |  | Based onthe comic book series of the same name byJeff Lemire, thisRobert Downey Jr.-produced,James Brolin-narrated Netflix fantasy series released last week takes place in a world where animal-human hybrids are being hunted down, and follows the adventures of a boy born part deer and part human named Gus as he travels across America with his human companion, Tommy, in search of Gus's mother. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
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| 1 | Juneteenth | | 2,615,582 |  | Saturday was Juneteenth, which commemorates theabolition of slavery in Texas following the Civil War. While most states have some recognition of the holiday, it took until this Thursday for President Biden to make it afederal holiday—the timing probably has a lot to do withthe civil rights protest movement from last year. |
| 2 | UEFA Euro 2020 | | 2,548,439 |  | As of this report's cut-off, every team has played two of their three group games.Italy,Belgium and theNetherlands are already through, but will still try to win their group, for a theoretically easier round of 16 match (although the Netherlands have already won theirs)North Macedonia are already knocked out and now play for pride. However, for the other 20 teams still need to fight to stay in, with only 13 of those 20 teams making it through... |
| 3 | Cristiano Ronaldo | | 950,014 |  | Ronaldo is currently playing forPortugal in the UEFA Euros. He's a pretty big deal, enough to be blamed for a stock value drop ofThe Coca-Cola Company after moving a bottle of Coke off the table to encourage viewers to drink water. (the true story is much more complicated) |
| 4 | Loki (TV series) | | 881,400 |  | ThoughtWandaVision was a one time deal in "Disney+ Marvel shows that seem designed to leave the viewer confused every week"? Nope,Loki is here with its timeline variances to keep that void filled. There was even the reveal of the antagonist, known as "The Variant", an alternate Loki who not only is intent on breaking the flow of time, but is a woman! |
| 5 | Milkha Singh | | 872,744 |  | Nicknamed "The Flying Sikh", a sprinter who was the last Indian man to get close to an Olympic medal in track and field with a 1956 fourth place (a woman got to the same position in 1984;the country has not had much Olympic success in running, jumping and throwing), and died of COVID-19 complications at the age of 91. |
| 6 | Christian Eriksen | | 866,489 |  | Following theDanish international's cardiac arrest during his match againstFinland national football team (June 12), he has been fitted with animplantable cardioverter defibrillator. Meanwhile, during Denmark's match againstBelgium was paused in the10th minute for a tribute (Eriksen wears the #10 shirt), with a banner reading "All of Denmark is with you, Christian". |
| 7 | Critical race theory | | 858,371 | School boards around the United States are filled with talk about "critical race theory," a specific academic field that, to some critical eyes, encompasses everything fromThe 1619 Project towhite genocide. InWashoe County, Nevada, parents even proposed equipping teachers with body cams to prevent the dastardly CRT. Liberals warn that bans on CRT—so far passed in Idaho and Florida—will have a chilling effect on discussions of racism, while conservatives boast that they would have a chilling effect on discussions of racism. | |
| 8 | Deaths in 2021 | | 830,867 | %2c_Pfarrkirche_St._Jakobus_der_%25C3%2584ltere_(7).jpg) | When I die and they lay me to rest Gonna go to the place that's the best When I lay me down to die Goin' up to theSpirit in the Sky |
| 9 | Novak Djokovic | | 814,589 | .jpg) | Djkovic won theMen's Singles tournament at the French Open on June 13, taking the champion title fromStefanos Tsitsipas. |
| 10 | UEFA European Championship | | 691,184 |  | Ever since 1960, the European national football teams have a tournament among them every four years. Although the goddamned pandemic ensured the latest edition (#2) had an extra year of wait. |
"Cruella [...] the newest Joker movie"I shat myself from laughter from reading this -Gouleg🛋️ harass/hound14:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
