More cultured than "let me get you a nice cold glass of shut the hell up" or "would you like some cheese with that whine?," this involves a visual gag.
Ingredients: two people. One is upset and crying, sobbing, complaining or whining. The other is not sympathetic in any way to the "life threatening predicament" such as a boyfriend not calling, a systematic downvoting, or other such triviality.
The person fed up with the whiner takes his index finger and thumb and rubs them together in very small circles. He then asks, "Do you know what this is?"
The whiner, taking a break for a moment, says, "No, what is it?"
"It's the world's smallest violin playing sad songs, just for you."
This infuriates the person who previously was whining and usually leads to quiet sulking. A much better state than loud, obnoxious whining.
Other variants in the wild include:
Sometimes, for added effect, the person "playing the violin" will hold up their other hand doing the same motion and ask, "Well, do you know what this is?"
The formerly-whining person responds with, "No, WHAT?"
"The same thing, only in stereo."
(This can be extrapolated with multiple people to quadrophonic, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS, SDDS, or THX, depending on the desired flavor.)