Facebook, One Direction, 'The Avengers' and death: what people read on Wikipedia this year

Wikipedia isn't self-involved enough to release information on the most popular pages of 2012, but, if you're interested (and have the time, energy and skill set to peruse log files), you're able to see what people wiki-ed this year. Swedish software engineer Johan Gunnarsson was kind enough to go ahead and take care of that for everyone. He published a list of the top 10 visited pages on the English version of Wikipedia. The results won't surprise you. Facebook finished on top with more than 32.5 million views. The page for "Wiki" earned the second spot (how meta). Also, people wanted to know who died this year ("Deaths in 2012" came in at No. 3) and everyone was trying to figure out what the hell a One Direction is. Apparently it's a band? Go figure. [h/t Gizmodo]

1. Facebook - 32,647,942

2. Wiki - 29,613,759

3. Deaths in 2012 - 25,418,587

4. One Direction - 22,351,637

5. The Avengers - 22,268,644

6. 50 Shades of Grey - 21,779,423

7. 2012 phenomenon - 20,619,920

8. The Dark Knight Rises - 18,882,885

9. Google - 18,508,719

10. The Hunger Games - 18,431,626