yeah like.......sometimes that happens here too, an english joke or meme that my mom or parents get sent and it just goes waaaaay over their heads and they need an explanation and then the story or joke is no longer funny because it needs to be explained. XD;;

like the story my dad was sent some time ago about how someone was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and they were just one question away from the million dollars or something and she only had one lifeline left, to call a friend. so she calls her blond friend and asks her the question (it was something like which bird lives in the nests of other birds). and they were given the four options and one of them was the Cuckoo bird. the blond friend chooses the cuckoo bird immediately and the contestant wins. later, when the contestant asks her blond friend how she was so certain that cuckoo bird was the right answer, her blond friend was like "well of course its the cuckoo bird, because cuckoo birds live in clocks!"

the blond joke completely went over my mom's head. my dad was laughing his head off. even after explaining, my mom didn't know how to laugh over the joke. xD

I can see that one being confusing. It's based off such a mean premise (a whole category of people is considered air-headed because of their hair color? It makes no sense, and it's cruel), and then you have to at least be aware of this as a cultural phenomenon to have a chance at knowing the whole story is an allusion to that, and then you have to enjoy irony about being right for the wrong reason....
Yeah.

Makes sense.

On the other hand, being in a situation where humor is frequently examined means you probably have a really good grasp of what it takes to make people laugh, which is a handy skill.

yeah it is confusing for someone who's not as aware of some cultural significances, like my mom who's chinese. xD;; and yes it is a pretty mean premise, although unfortunately that doesn't stop such jokes from continuing to be spread around.

but im aware that some chinese jokes would literally go over my head because i don't understand it either. so pft yeah. xD

I still remember being so proud of myself the first time I actually caught and understood a bilingual joke. That was so long ago now, and the man who told me the joke died several decades back, but that moment was so full of pure triumph that it's still a clear memory.
And it wasn't a good joke, either.
But the point was, I got it. Ha ha ha ha, minds are funny things, they remember the oddest stuff.

yeah some linguistic jokes don't make sense in a different language. like a lot of languages just don't translate as well back into english. which makes the joke confusing if you don't understand it in the original language. xD;; in the end, the fact that you can grossly misunderstand a joke makes it actually funnier than it really is. lol

For sure, a lot of the time my laughter at a joke is less about the joke itself than it is about the person telling it, or the reactions of the people around who heard it. I had a friend back in childhood who was so incredibly expressive, people in class used to go to her right away and tell her the most terrible jokes, because she'd screw up her face in outrage at the bad pun, and it would be so funny... the pun wouldn't be that funny, but her face definitely was!

Lol hahah laughing not at the joke but of how it’s being told or who’s telling it or just the reactions. But not to the actual joke itself. Lol

Yes, ha ha, that's the essence of my usual reaction. >.<
But, I know it's not uncommon; that's why comedy shows use laugh tracks and some comedians crack up at their own jokes -it gets people laughing who might not laugh at the joke itself, but who will laugh along with others, or who just think it's funny that a comedian can't keep a straight face.
So I can't be the only one doing it, or those things wouldn't happen. Right?

That’s true enough. Some jokes would probably just fly over peoples heads lol. Or might not be as funny. Or reference something that you’re not familiar with. Lol

Oof, references are so hard

I need a cheat sheet somewhere, like a wikipedia of top 100 most common English cultural references, that gets updated every three years or so...