Patrick Swayze

About Patrick Swayze

Patrick Swayze (1952–2009) was an American actor, dancer, and singer, whose influence secured him a Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rank of \#904 out of approximately 15,000 figures analyzed by the Pantheon project. His legacy is rooted in his versatile career, particularly his leading roles in cultural touchstones like *Dirty Dancing* and *Ghost*, which cemented his status as a global icon across film and music.

Despite this relatively high historical ranking, Swayze’s 2025 annualized Wikipedia attention registers at 2.7 million views, indicating a significant overattention bias relative to his historical weight—specifically, an Attention Gap of +9x. This level of modern internet focus surpasses that of significantly more historically important figures, such as Skanderbeg (\#556 importance, 403K views) or Francisco Goya (\#233 importance, 590K views), revealing a contemporary interest skewed towards pop culture figures over classical historical influencers.

This trend of declining interest in established historical importance is further underscored by his -20.8% year-over-year change in views and a -13% dip in momentum between Q1 and Q3 of 2025, suggesting that while his current online visibility is high for his HPI bracket, it is actively receding.