Overview
- Kirk’s biography drew about 45 million views, including roughly 15 million the day after he was shot and killed at Utah Valley University on September 10, with more than 40% of traffic from outside the United States.
- Rounding out the top five were Deaths in 2025 (42.5 million), Ed Gein (31.2 million), President Donald Trump (25.1 million) and Pope Leo XIV (22.1 million).
- Interest in Ed Gein was fueled by Netflix’s Monster series, while film and TV pages benefited from a second‑screen habit that also lifted titles like Sinners, Superman, Severance and Adolescence into the top 20.
- US politics remained a major draw, with Elon Musk and New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani joining the top 10 and JD Vance ranking 16th for the year.
- Wikimedia reported a record peak of about 800,000 hits per second during the selection of Pope Leo XIV and noted that Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary arrives in January, supported by roughly 250,000 volunteer editors.