The phrase sounds before it is explained
On a white background there are several lines, a face with closed eyes, and the captions “ooaoaa)” and “mmm))”. The little figure is drawn schematically: from this frame one can read a gesture at the hand, but cannot reliably reconstruct the object or the character's real story. That is why the center of the joke is not a detailed plot but a strange, drawn-out phonetics. The letters convey a sound of pleasure that does not have to be beautiful or coherent.
The image works as a small pantomime: the first part resembles an exhale, the second a satisfied continuation. The parentheses add a facial expression to the letters, although the drawn smile explains almost nothing. When the drawing is placed after a story about food, luck or a favorite song, the caption does not report a new fact but turns the reaction into a deliberately absurd sound.
Misha Shmelev and the delayed publication
In a later account, Misha Shmelev is named as the creator of the picture. According to that account, he drew and published it in March 2018, but did not immediately begin spreading it actively: first he developed the community “Glycine Lovers' Club,” and then he returned to the drawing and asked acquaintances who were administrators to post it in their groups. The March date is known from the author's own recollection.
By early summer a separate public page had appeared around the phrase, and the drawing and its variants were already turning up in the comments of various communities. Promotion through acquaintances who were administrators allowed each new placement to find its own audience: the drawing reached people who had never followed the creator before. The short ending was also repeated under other comics, turning the author's device into a shared game.
From a post-ironic comic to an interjection
At the start, the drawing belonged to a series of post-ironic comics with a recurring ending. The repetition itself created an effect: the reader might expect a punchline but got a familiar interjection that concluded very little. Later the short phrase broke away from its earlier storyline and became a reaction to a pleasant small thing, roughly like “wow,” except that an invented noise takes the place of a clear assessment.
What matters in this shift is not the degree of delight but the refusal to explain it in ordinary words. If you write “very tasty,” the meaning is clear at once; “ooaoaa) mmm))” performs the pleasure as a strange bodily reaction, and therefore sounds post-ironic. At the same time, the same reply can mean either genuine joy or playful exaggeration, and the neighboring text decides which.
When a contented sound fits the occasion
Invented caption: a person opens a box of still-warm buns and replies only “ooaoaa) mmm))”. The sound here replaces a long compliment: the delight is obvious, but it is deliberately expressed as a stammering noise. In another scene, someone finally finds a lost flash drive in a jacket pocket. The phrase fits not because the find is big, but because relief comes before any coherent explanation.
A third example: an acquaintance plays an old song they had long wanted to hear and, instead of a review, leaves this interjection. In each case the caption must sit next to a specific occasion: without one, the sound remains just a repetition, while with one it becomes a personal reaction. When the drawing is attached on its own, its stylized pose adds a comic image of a person so pleased that he seems to have forgotten how to build ordinary sentences.
