While not perfect, Wikipedia traffic serves as a solid proxy for the ebb and flow of a celebrity’s cultural relevance. It makes sense that household names like Prince and Stephen Hawking get the most traffic immediately following their death. The bigger the star (or tragedy), the more they are searched.

After Anthony Bourdain died, it seemed like everybody (myself included) couldn’t talk about anything else. It was sad and unexpected.

I could rattle off a dozen other recent deaths that seemed to eclipse the rest of the news cycle. But which celebrities’ pageviews grew abnormally high? Let’s look at the percent increase in pageviews compared to a typical day.