Sigmund Freud

About Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was the Austrian neurologist whose work established psychoanalysis, fundamentally altering the understanding of the human mind. His contributions, including the concepts of the unconscious, dream analysis, and the Oedipus complex, cemented his status as one of the most influential thinkers in modern history, earning him the MIT Pantheon project's HPI Rank of #76 among nearly 15,000 figures.

Despite this profound historical importance, Freud's modern digital presence shows a notable overattention relative to his historical weight. He garnered approximately 2.2 million annualized Wikipedia views in 2025. This places him in a peculiar position: he receives a significant +3x overattention when compared to his HPI ranking. For context, he garners substantially fewer views than current political figures like Narendra Modi (#163 importance, 4.9M views) and Vladimir Putin (#107 importance, 7.4M views), though his figure is higher than the much more historically ranked Louis XIV of France (#42 importance, 213K views).

Furthermore, the 2025 data suggests a slight cooling of interest, with his pageviews declining by 14.9% year-over-year, and a small -3% drop in momentum between Q1 and Q3, indicating his cultural footprint on the internet may be slowly receding.