Editing 2714: Cold Complaints

{{comic
| number    = 2714
| date      = December 21, 2022
| title     = Cold Complaints
| image     = cold_complaints.png
| imagesize = 740x254px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Our investigation into whining-based remedies became the first study to be halted by the IRB on the grounds that the treatment group was 'too annoying.'
}}

==Explanation==

When people are ill, they will often complain about the symptoms that they're suffering from. A common stereotype is that men will revert to infantile behavior when miserably sick. This can be annoying to the people around them, but they typically tolerate such behavior out of compassion. The joke in this comic is that [[Hairy]] spoke via a {{w|telehealth}} appointment to [[Ponytail]], a medical professional who explicitly advised him to act out, since his condition has no effective medical treatment. He takes her advice to "act like you're the first person ever to have a cold" literally, stating it specifically when his companion asks about it. Given xkcd's humor in the past, this may be supposed to trick the cold virus into thinking that it has not had a lot of time to evolve to infect human cells effectively so that it does not infect Hairy's cells as effectively.

This comic was published during a "tripledemic" in the U.S., involving {{w|COVID-19}}, {{w|influenza}}, and {{w|respiratory syncytial virus}} (RSV, a frequent cause of common colds) infections, the latter of which do not have readily available effective treatments, other than to wait them out with plenty of rest and fluids (provided that symptoms do not require hospitalization). It expounds on the finding that "talking about troublesome events, including events with which one is dissatisfied, may ... result in improved physiological health." (Kowalski, R.M. (2002) [http://people.uncw.edu/hakanr/documents/whining.pdf "Whining, griping, and complaining: positivity in the negativity"] ''Journal of Clinical Psychology'' '''58'''(9):1023–35.) 

The title text describes a similar study, but where the {{w|institutional review board}} (IRB) halted the study because the participants were too annoying. This is ironic since they were supposed to whine annoyingly for the sake of the experiment. IRBs are expected to review the ethics of a research project, with particular attention paid to the well-being of the subjects. Whining is not usually considered dangerous,{{citation needed}} but in this case it was presumably so intolerable to the Board (or perhaps the control group, who were presumably forbidden from whining while sick) that they had to put a stop to it.

==Transcript==

:[Hairy sitting on a chair in front of a computer screen, with popped sleep bubbles coming from the left side of his head. There is an image of Ponytail on the screen speaking.]
:Ponytail: Well, it's not COVID or flu. Probably one of the other viruses.
:Hairy: Ughh

:[A zoomed out version of the image, Ponytail cannot be seen]
:Ponytail: There's not much you can do to speed up recovery other than rest, hydrate, and whine and complain and be a gigantic baby about it. 

:[Same as previous panel]
:Hairy: Whine and complain?
:Ponytail: Yeah. You need to act like you're the first person ever to have a cold.

:[Hairy lying on a couch wrapped in a blanket, with a lot of paper tissues around]
:Off-screen voice: Are you '''''sure''''' that's what she said?
:Hairy: Unbelievable. Here I am, the only person ever to feel bad, and you're '''''doubting''''' me?  

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Doctor Ponytail]]
[[Category:Medicine]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]