Which writer is more popular than Shakespeare? Worldwide. (And no The Bible doesn’t count). According to the Index Translationum, Shakespeare is the third most translated writer in the world (after Agatha Christie and Jules Verne). His influence on the Western World obviously towers over Christie and Verne (as much as I like the latter).
Go somewhere in Asia or Africa to ask around - they don’t have a clue who Lady Gaga is but they probably know who Beethoven is. You’re confusing Mass Media saturation with popularity. In actuality, James Joyce is huge with the latter day inner-city ghetto. Gertrude Stein is big in the Barrio. (The last couple of sentences were jokes.)
King can poop on a piece of paper and sell 10 million copies, and all those purchases and reads are voluntary. Looks like your own data, apparently Christie and Verne are more popular than him too.
I’m not confusing anything. You’re confusing the meaning of the word popular:
regarded with favor, approval, or affection by people in general
of, pertaining to, or representing the people, especially the common people prevailing among the people generally
By your own admission the man on the street listens to more Gaga than Beethoven, that makes Gaga, according to the dictionary, more popular. You and I both know that more people chose to read Stephen King than Shakespeare, which again makes him more popular. Mass media saturation is the result of popularity, and sometimes makes popularity. Throw jokes if you want but out here in reality the stuff the people in ghettos are reading and listening to will probably have a bigger audience, ie be more popular, than most anything else just because there’s more of them than us. They are the people in general, the common people, what they regard with favor and approval, what pertains to and represents them IS popular by the very definition of the word.