Huh. I haven't had the issue in Chrome yet (though to be fair, I haven't been using Chrome all that much lately). I haven't had any issues in Safari, but I HAVE had these issues in Webkit.
So you guys having issues in Chrome, and me in Webkit, would indicate that it's something to do with Webkit. But then that doesn't explain why I haven't had any issues in Safari
I thought it was just me because I read somewhere you can stop all animated gifs on a page by pressing the ESC key. It worked but gifs have been fukking up ever since but I guess it was just a coincidence if others are having the same problem.