History's Attention Gap

Summary

Buddha is #2 in historical importance. In 2025, he got fewer Wikipedia pageviews than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Every year, MIT's Pantheon project ranks history's most globally influential figures using the Historical Popularity Index (HPI). This peer-reviewed metric synthesizes Wikipedia presence across 25+ languages, article length, and sustained view counts over time to measure lasting global influence. × What's an Attention Gap? We compared each figure's 2025 Wikipedia views to what you'd expect given their historical importance. The gap tells you who's internet-famous beyond their legacy and who history is forgetting. +10x means 10x more attention than expected. -10x means 10x less. We took their top 1,000 figures and compared their "importance" ranking to their actual 2025 Wikipedia pageviews. The gap between who history says matters and who we actually look up is striking. 1,000 historical figures analyzed ⸻ The Forgotten Geniuses Some of history's most consequential figures are practically invisible online. Not because they don't matter, but because pop culture has moved on. One founded a religion. One said "I'll be back." The internet has opinions. Gautama Buddha HPI Rank: #2 410K views vs Arnold Schwarzenegger HPI Rank: #618 6.3M views Schwarzenegger gets 15x more attention than Buddha, despite being ranked 616 places lower in historical importance. To be fair, Arnold was also a seven-time Mr. Olympia, Hollywood's biggest action star, and Governor of California. But Buddha's teachings shaped half a billion lives across 2,500 years. The gap is striking. The inventor of algebra got 74,000 views. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (#92 in importance) invented the algorithms that power every computer, phone, and search engine you use. He gets less traffic in a year than Donald Trump gets in a single day. The pattern holds across the top 10. Note how modern political figures dominate attention while foundational thinkers fade: Trump (#4 importance) gets 34.5 million v...