‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ and strange Wikipedia results

Who knew that television shows were such popular searches by people in other countries on Wikipedia? It’s an amazing phenomenon, largely for one primary reason: there are no TV shows among the top ten pages visited on the internet encyclopedia in 2012 in America, but a number of other countries are seeing these pages pop up all over the place.

Want some evidence? Take a look at the astounding news that “Grey’s Anatomy” is actually the most-visited Wikipedia entry in the Italian version of the site, while “Gossip Girl” (#4) and “The Vampire Diaries” (#6) are each also a part of the country’s list. What is even more amazing is that in the German edition there are four shows in the top ten: “How I Met Your Mother” (#4), “The Big Bang theory” (#5), a surprising entry from “Two and a Half Men” (#8), and “Game of Thrones” (#9). For those curious, Facebook is the most-popular entry for Wikipedia users who speak English.

So what is the reason for these TV shows managing to remain so popular in other languages? Really, you can attribute much of it to how much Wikipedia is primarily dominated by English-language users, in addition to younger generations. Japanese is the only language with an entry that would be in America’s top ten, which may go to show you that the sort of users who access Wikipedia in other languages are people who are still interested in English-language products … and considering that television is readily available more so than other art forms, so it makes since that the young Wikipedia crowd would be interested in checking it out.

With that being said, who knew that Dr. McDreamy would prove to be so popular in Italian? It’s simply fascinating to see what other countries are watching and looking for online.

Do you want to read some more “Grey’s Anatomy” news? If so, all you have to do is head on over to the link here.

Photo: ABC