A green spherical creature waddles on four stubby legs. Smiling impishly, it opens its mouth, exposing six gleaming-white teeth. Gulp! A swirling red-and-white peppermint candy falls into its awaiting jaws, consumed with a satisfactory munch. This creature is Om Nom. But what really is Om Nom? And, perhaps more importantly, why should anyone care?

Om Nom is the protagonist of the Cut the Rope video game produced by Zeptolab, but it also has connections to the Harker community, particularly within math circles. While the origin of Om Nom’s appearance is not fully clear, most agree that it spontaneously spawned in during middle school math elective three years ago. Whether it be hiding in a small corner of a whiteboard or finding its way into math contest problems, Om Nom occasionally appears throughout students’ daily activities. But upon a deeper delve, one will find that Om Nom’s roots extend far past its cursory forays in various classrooms.

Math club member Claire Luo (12) recalls her journey with Om Nom, specifically, the emotional significance she never expected to derive from such an arbitrary figure. When Claire took math elective in middle school, she remembers Om Nom drawings appearing frequently throughout whiteboards and notebooks. Though she is unable to identify a specific moment when Om Nom was introduced to math elective, Claire enjoyed seeing the creature grow into a unifying symbol for the class. Even now, Om Nom still serves as a nostalgic reminder of fun times spent in math elective.

“I remember playing Cut the Rope when I was really little,” Claire said “I forgot about Om Nom, but then in math elective back in eighth grade it got reintroduced. Om Nom became a mascot for the math elective and it really brought a lot of joy to all the members. Now that [we’re] in high school, we don’t see Om Nom that much, but every year when we go and proctor for [Harker Math Invitational], Om Nom always makes a reappearance in the problems.”

Her experience with Om Nom is one shared by many. Former Math Club co-president Stephen Xia (‘23) encountered Om Nom in a similar manner, first discovering it while helping coach the middle school Mathcounts competition team. Though Stephen was initially uninterested in the green monster, constant exposure to the creature, both in casual conversation and now throughout campus, has “softened his heart.” Last year, he bought an Om Nom plush, a token which he carried into his Info Theory classes every other day and still retains in college. For him, Om Nom has come to represent math at Harker, with Stephen constantly encountering the creature in his math activities.

“[I see Om Nom] at least every B and D day, every Thursday after school, and now when I get home [because] I have an Om Nom plush,” Stephen said. “Everything needs a mascot, and so [Om Nom] is now the mascot of [Harker] math.”

Om Nom has now become synonymous with math for many who have participated in competition math, popping up on upper school mathematics teachers Anu Aiyer and Anthony Silk’s whiteboards. Yet, Om Nom has no inherent ties to mathematics as merely an animated character in a children’s video game. Despite the seeming frivolity of such a creature, it has become a cornerstone of competition math at Harker, finding a place in the annual Harker Math Invitational (HMI). HMI Organizer and middle school Math Department Head Vandana Kadam remembers first seeing Om Nom in her 2019 math elective class.

“You can have something that is particular to [a community], whatever the size,” Kadam said. “Om Nom could be very particular to one class or one group of students, but it brought them together. It had some meaning for them. It could be busting stress, [or] it could be just having fun during lunch coming and drawing [Om Noms].”

How an unrelated oddity can grow into a mascot that connects a community speaks volumes to the power of symbols, regardless of how arbitrary they may be. There are countless other creatures out there, some green, some spherical, even some enamored with peppermints. Yet it is not Om Nom’s external qualities that have made it such a powerful symbol, but the aspirations and interests it represents. While everyone who encounters Om Nom may interpret its significance differently, the creature’s abstract nature can connect these differing perspectives.

“[Om Nom] is a small thing, but it can bring a smile to your face,” Kadam said. “It is something that stays on with that group of people forever. Om Nom may just disappear, but within [its group], that connection will still be on for a long time. We have to create that kind of [connection]: a desire to make that mascot big within the community, for it to extend later on.”

In a superficial sense, Om Nom serves no value to any form of community, lending itself to a life of triviality, known only as the candy-consuming monster of a children’s game. Nevertheless, Om Nom has blossomed into a larger figure – a mascot that connects a community, encapsulating moments shared and memories made. Interwoven into the fabric of connection, the power of symbolism is one of an unspoken language, unifying groups with a common message. In that way, Om Nom is a symbol, an archetype of eccentricity and levity, made meaningful through the people whose experiences resonate within it.

This story was originally published on Harker Aquila on March 14, 2024.