The story
From Japanese 顔(かお)文(も)字(じ) (kaomoji), from 顔(かお) (kao, “face”) + 文(も)字(じ) (moji, “letter, character”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
kaomoji
kao·mo·jiToday it means: A text-based Japanese emoticon, distinct from a Western emoticon in that it is not rotated sideways, and often includes a larger variety of characters (originally from Shift JIS, now including Unicode). Full definition →