Ackshually, the meme is encoded using progressively smaller images nested into the fourth panel of the comic. Each fourth panel is effectively a nested function call to the original comic procedure, which more closely represents recursion than an infinite loop.

For an infinite loop, one might instead lay out the 3 unique panels horizontally, and just memcpy them into rows below, creating a table. That's a regression in humor, but it'd fix the bug.

So I agree with @ryannathans@aussie.zone's review; The joke is about infinite loops, but the visual gag is about recursion.