Love And Noraebang: A Fiction Podcast That Mixes Genres & Ethnicities

I'm watching a rerun of the TV show Alias on Amazon Prime. The thriller was last broadcast in 2006 with first-run episodes, but like a lot of TV shows, it has been resurrected for near immortality in the fertile soil of TV rerun land.

This example shows how TV has an advantage over podcasting in the area of  reruns. Podcasting doesn't really have such a resource. Consider fiction podcasts that run --often as a limited, one-season series -- for eight to ten episodes, garner thousands of downloads, a lot of social media attention, and attracts advertisers with money to spend. Once the series is over, it's the graveyard for fiction podcasts.

To double down on this point, podcasting has begun to release some high-quality audio fiction in the last two years. One of my personal favorites was Red Frontier, which was released in July 2021 with 11 short episodes about a mission to colonize Mars. Great show, but who's listening now?

So today, I'd like to re-introduce a particular favorite fiction podcast called Love And Noraebang, which is the first romcom, K-drama, telenovela podcast series. An original production from her company, Sonoro, in partnership with Mash-Up Americans. Love And Noraebang was released on July 19, 2022, and had ten episodes, all released in Netflix, binge style.  

Here is  Camila Victoriano, co-founder of Sonoro, a global entertainment company focused on creating premium, culturally relevant content that starts in audio and comes alive in TV, film and beyond. Sonoro and co-producers The Mash Up Americans developed the genre rule breaker Love And Noraebang.

"We had noticed a trend – when characters from two different backgrounds fell in love in other films, their cultures and families clash. That tends to become the big hurdle their relationship has to face. We wanted to flip the script on that – in Love And Noraebang, the fact that Jaesun is Korean and Ana is Mexican-American actually adds to their relationship and brings them that much more joy. Their cultures aren’t a roadblock.That was important to us."

Victoriano continues: "At Sonoro, we always knew we wanted to reinvent the telenovela for audio because it is such an important through line for many Latin cultures in the US and around the world.
When we met with the team at The Mash-Up Americans, we took that a step further and realized we could bring another major format into the mix – the K-drama. And to be honest, the idea came together as simply as that. We all felt that the blending of these
formats into a modern day romcom made so much sense, yet it hadn’t been done before."

So what's Love And Noraebang about?

The podcast is a romcom, Korean drama, and Telenovela all wrapped up in one delectable package. Just listen to the two-minute trailer and your ears will demand sonic binge mode for all episodes. 

 Here's the storyline. Jaesun, an heir to a Korean chaebol, and Ana, a Mexican American entrepreneur, fall in love in modern day LA. After months of innocent flirting and one passionate karaoke session later, Ana finds out that Jaesun must return to Korea for his two-year military service. And when her business hits an unexpected roadblock, miscommunications ensue. Ana must decide whether she's going to go at it alone or have some faith in her love. Will their relationship survive the distance?

One specific narrative device that hypnotized me was the anthropomorphic nature of the city of Los Angeles. The city has a human voice and narrates the tale. Voice-over narration can be clumsy and clunky, but in the hands of these production studios, it is expertly crafted and adds to the elegant simplicity of the show.

You can listen to all ten episodes in under 90 minutes. The show is funny, quick-witted with ethnic characters drawn from the personal experiences of the co-producers -- who themselves are multi-ethnic -- with terrific voice-over actors and sound production design and mixing that deposits the quality in your ears.

Love And Noraebang co-producers, Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer of the Mash-Up Americans (they call themselves "your guide to hyphen-America.") noted: "We're rooted in tradition, looking to the future, and creating culture each day we live it. Since 2013, we've been helping our community navigate the complexities of mash-up identity as we cross multiple borders, ask all the awkward questions, and figure out for ourselves what it means to live expansive, authentic, impactful lives where we bring our whole selves to the table every time. In nearly a decade of doing this work, we've learned Mash-Ups are at the leading edge of culture, whether it's in what they're doing or how they're doing it."

You don't have to be ethnic or multi-ethnic to enjoy Love And Noraebang. It's a fiction podcast for everyone about every one of us in all our various iterations.

 Take a listen here. Your ears will thank you.