However people who saw the original comic and saw the progressive edits that gradually became more and more abstract would have often understood. Like many imageboard memes, it was an in-joke.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t have recognized it either, if I didn’t know the memes. It’s basically become its own internet culture thing.

I guess, because the original comic is presented in such a simple way, people thought they recognized it in other 4-panel-comics. This lead to people actually hiding it in other comics, which was eventually taken ad absurdum, kind of like rickrolling, where someone posted something as innocous-looking as possible which would still make people think of the original.