I watch Korean variety shows with my Korean friends and I never understand why they're laughing?

Korean humor clicks once you catch a few patterns. A lot of variety show comedy lives in the captions and editing rather than just what people say, so producers add big on-screen text, sound effects, zoom-ins, and freeze frames that comment on a moment, and half the joke is the editing reacting to someone's face or a small slip. Wordplay and puns (말장난) are huge, which is part of why they are hard to catch through subtitles, since the joke is in how a word sounds.

There is also a strong culture of recurring characters, where each cast member plays a role like the clumsy one, the greedy one, or the try-hard, and the laughs build from those dynamics across many episodes. Slapstick, exaggerated reactions, and self-deprecation land regardless of language, and a lot of humor comes from hierarchy and 눈치 (reading the room), like the awkwardness between juniors and seniors. Shows like Running Man, the older but foundational Infinite Challenge, and Knowing Bros are great for learning the rhythm. Honestly, watching a few episodes with your friends translating the puns in real time is the fastest way in, and once you know the recurring characters and the caption style, it suddenly gets much funnier.