Emoticons are textual portrayals of a writer's moods or facial expressions in the form of icons. Originally, these icons consisted of ASCII art.
Emoticons can generally be divided into two groups: Western (mainly from America and Europe) or horizontal; Eastern or vertical (mainly from east Asia).
Western style emoticons are mostly written from left to right as though the head is rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees.
Eastern emoticons generally are not rotated sideways. They first arose in Japan, where they are referred to as kaomoji.