Shutdown shenanigans

Summary: If you're living in the United States, what did you do during the government shutdown? Well, it seems most people watched the final episode of Breaking Bad. Real life and fantasy clashed head on this week, as the first government shutdown in 17 years coincided with the series finale of one of the most popular television shows of recent times. TV beat real life by a hair.

For the week of September 29 to October 4, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Breaking Bad		1,479,907		The final episode of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series aired on September 29.
2	United States federal government shutdown of 2013		730,644		The shutdown of the government was the other major topic of discussion this week.
3	Tom Clancy		675,054		The popular writer of military thrillers like The Hunt For Red October and Clear and Present Danger died on October 1.
4	Government shutdown	disambig	618,240		A disambig most likely reached by people looking for #2
5	List of Breaking Bad episodes	List	605,400		People will turn to this page to keep up with the show.
6	Breaking Bad (season 5)	List	571,349		As above, people want to keep up with this show.
7	Government shutdown in the United States		556,134		This is the article on the concept of a US government shutdown, again probably reached by people looking for #2.
8	Facebook		515,310		A perennially popular article
9	Lorde		502,186		The not-quite 17-year-old singer-songwriter from New Zealand released her debut album, Pure Heroine, on 27 September.
10	Gravity (film)		426,904		Acclaimed director Alfonso Cuaron's outer space opus was the #1 movie at the US box office this weekend, earning $55 million; the biggest opening of Sandra Bullock's career.

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Just curious, why was Lycos and G-force not included? They polled higher than Gravity. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:57, 10 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Been busy this week, so didn't do my usual in-depth coverage, but "g-force" and "Lycos" are standard removals, because they always chart and I can never find a plausible reason for them to do so. Serendi ^pod ous 01:01, 11 October 2013 (UTC) reply

See, now, I only asked, Serendi ^pod ous, because I was hoping you could explain why either (but especially Lycos) were so popular! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:43, 11 October 2013 (UTC) reply

The general consensus for "G-force"(or "G", which also charts often) is that people are typing "G" for "Google" into Google Chrome's search bar and then hastily clicking "Enter". As for Lycos, no idea, but I suspect artificial inflation, ala Yahoo a few weeks back. Serendi ^pod ous 15:15, 11 October 2013 (UTC) reply

We keep seeing Facebook in these traffic reports, but not other popular websites like Twitter, YouTube or Google. Is there any chance that the statistics are being manipulated somehow? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 21:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Other websites always appear in the top 25; it's just that Facebook happens to be the most popular website on Earth right now. Serendi ^pod ous 01:01, 11 October 2013 (UTC) reply

I imagine there's also a high degree of looking for facebook.com and getting the WP article. Bounce rate stats would clear that up czar  ♔ 21:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC) reply

Well, for Twitter, many people use it via third party apps or mobile devices, not the website. But Serendipodous has a longer list, you can see last weeks at User:Serendipodous/Top25. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liz ( talk • contribs) 01:59, 12 October 2013 (UTC) reply