574: Swine Flu
| Swine Flu |
 Title text: Bad flu epidemics can hit young adults hardest because they provoke their powerful immune systems into overreaction, so to stay healthy spend the next few weeks drunk and sleep-deprived to keep yours suppressed. |
Explanation
Swine flu is a strain of the flu which can be transmitted from pigs to humans. In 2009, it was the origin of the Pandemic H1N1/09 virus, which most news stations called either "H1N1" (the subtype name) or "swine flu". Because of the ambiguous name given to it and the somewhat hazy description of the transmittal process and dangers to humans, many people were concerned about the virus in ways that weren't going to be threats. This comic pokes a bit of fun at the overreaction by users on Twitter.
Randall (or someone else) seems to have created Twitter accounts for all referenced handles (that may not have already existed). Some of the handles continue their interactions with each other in later tweets.
Skeeve37 is a self-described hypochondriac. The tweet exemplifies the general populace's over-concern with the "animal themed" pandemics. Similarly after the bird flu scare, people avoided eating chicken.
Hanneloreec is a self-described "young lady who is concerned about many things". She is a reoccurring character in the webcomic Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques, who also manages her twitter handle.
Paulyshorefan's tweet is a reference to the flash game "Pandemic 2", in which players try to create a disease that infects the whole world. Madagascar is the most difficult country to infect, as it only has 1 port and often closes it at the slightest hint of an infection. The difficulty of infecting Madagascar has caused it to become a meme. The user's Twitter handle is a reference to Pauly Shore, a comedian who was briefly popular in the 1990s before quickly becoming out of favor and derided as unfunny.
CrackMonkey74's tweet is a parody of viral Christian(?) messages that say that current tragedies are God's punishment, despite the fact that the Bible says that the end is not yet to come. More specifically, Crackmonkey74 blames the ACLU, lesbians (a reference to the current culture wars that give big press towards proponents of same-sex marriage against fundamentalist Christians), 9/11 (the day when the Twin Towers fell, causing controversy on whether Muslim terrorists crashed their planes on the towers or whether the government staged this by purposefully demolishing the towers) and nanobots (possibly a reference towards the highly promising but still relatively not understood field of nanotechnology, plus another reference towards the phrase "playing God"). He is likely the same Crackmonkey74 from 406: Venting and 202: YouTube.
Twilight7531's tweet implies that she got a bone fracture which ended up protruding from her arm. However, she seems to lack medical knowledge, so she is worried that her fracture is actually swine flu (though how she can be typing with a broken arm is confusing).
Wigu's tweet is a reply towards Untoward's. Given the context, Untoward seems to have "gotten intimate" with a pig (since syphilis is a venereal disease). Given the fact that Untoward got sick because of a pig, Untoward seems to have concluded that he got swine flu.
The last comment by 2011Seniorsrule references a medical paper published by the journal The Lancet, in which it is proposed that autism is caused by vaccination. Since then, the paper was partially retracted in 2004, and fully retracted in 2010 because of conflicts of interest. The entire incident has been defined as the MMR vaccine controversy. This stance has still been seen since the retraction of the paper, and still holds some popularity by cranks, quacks, pseudoscientists, and conspiracy theorists alike who are convinced that the CDC is hiding vital data that proves vaccines cause autism. The most famous figure in support of it is Jenny McCarthy. This Twitter user is not only using a debunked study about a completely different set of vaccines, they have also confused cause and effect (i.e. even if vaccines caused autism, that doesn't mean that autistic people carry flu vaccines). Also, licking vaccinated people isn't how vaccines are administered.[citation needed] On top of that, fear of germs and/or hypersensitivity is common among autistic people, so "licking an autistic kid" may be a difficult and possibly painful experience for the lickee. (By contrast, allistic children are well known to enjoy being licked.)
The title text at first states the fact that some flu symptoms are actually the symptoms of the body's reaction, and can in some cases be more dramatic than the initial infection. E.g. A fever is a defense mechanism of the body against a disease. Then the title text makes the recommendation to protect oneself from an overreaction by living an unhealthy life. This is not good advice. [citation needed]
Transcript
- [Caption:]
- Twitter is great for watching
- uninformed panics unfold live.
- [The comic shows a twitter search results page with "Swine flu" in the search box and a gray search button.]
- twitter [Swine flu] (search)
- [The results is displayed in a frame below the search panel:]
- Realtime results for Swine flu 0.05
- [This next line is highlighted in yellow. Most text here and below is written in normal black font, but the underlined links in the main text is in blue. Below each tweet is a line with info and reply links etc. all in gray font. Between the yellow line and the first tweet and between each tweet is a dotted line.]
- 1,918 more results since you started searching. Refresh to see.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Skeeve37: Oh god I ate pork yesterday before I knew about swine flu!
- Less than 10 seconds ago from web ∙ reply ∙ view tweet
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Hanneloreec: Without duct tape I can't seal the door to keep out swine flu but I can't get duct tape without going outside! Help!
- Less than 10 seconds ago from web ∙ reply ∙ view tweet
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Paulyshorefan: How long until the swine flu reaches me here in Madagascar?
- Less than 10 seconds ago from web ∙ reply ∙ view tweet
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- CrackMonkey74: Swine flu is God's punishment for the ACLU and lesbians and 9/11 and nanobots!
- Less than 10 seconds ago from web ∙ reply ∙ view tweet
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Twilight7531: I fell down the stairs and there was a crack and a jagged white thing is sticking out of my arm guys is this swine flu?
- Less than 10 seconds ago from twitterific ∙ reply ∙ view tweet
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Wigu: @Untoward: No, that sounds like syphilis, not swine flu. What did you say you did with a pig?
- Less than 10 seconds ago from tweetdeck ∙ reply ∙ view tweet
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- 2011Seniursrule: My Dad said flu vaccines are linked to autism, so to be safe from swine flu I'm trying to lick an autistic kid.
- Less than 10 seconds ago from web ∙ reply ∙ view tweet
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Trivia
- CrackMonkey74 has appeared in two earlier comics: 202: YouTube and 406: Venting.
- Randall's dismay over uninformed panics, especially regarding disease, will be mirrored in numerous comics concerning the very real COVID-19 pandemic over 10 years later.
add a comment! ⋅ add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ 
refresh comments!Discussion
HANNELOREEC [1] is a character in the web comic Questionable Content [2]. Hannelore suffers from OCD and other issues including another anxiety disorder, and even the idea of kissing grosses her out. Her comment in this comic is a typical display of her OCD. -- 64.242.52.33 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I do not wish to start an edit war, so I shall give my reasoning here for putting this under "furries." According to xkcd, furries are people with a fetish for animals. Given that Untoward seems to have "gotten intimate" with a pig (hence why he got a venereal disease), I decided that Untoward has an animal fetish, thus concluded that Untoward was a furry. Greyson (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure that all the twitter names are references to other online comics. 69.121.10.82 04:53, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
- Besides that, such an act does not make one a furry. Instead, it makes one a moron. Furries are in fact simply those who have an interest in anthropomorphic animals. 108.8.100.183 09:08, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Anyone else notice the 1918 swine flu pandemic reference? 86.15.83.223 19:57, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I think the title text explanation misses a key point, some flu strains (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic) disproportionately impact fit healthy young people due to an overreaction of the immune system. The title text humorously suggests that counter-intuitively being drunk and sleep-deprived will actually be good for your health in such circumstances. Plm-qaz snr (talk) 14:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
It may be worth noting that Hannelore's tweet is real.--108.162.229.123 11:12, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
- The question is, did Randal and Jeph collude intentionally or did Randal just throw the tweet into the comic? 108.162.219.77 18:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
@GreatWyrmGold (not having a Talk page to say this on, so I hope you see this here) regarding the "(→Explanation: Silly little edit. (Should this wiki have a "citation definitely needed" tag to distinguish this sort of thing from obvious-but-citation-still-needed stuff?))" comment. There's already the {{Actual citation needed}}, which I think is what you're looking for.[actual citation needed] 141.101.99.32 01:17, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
