What nation do you think emoticons and text acronyms came from?

My best guess is here in America since the first recorded emoticons were from Americans but text acronyms confuse me because when I was talking to a friend in Germany and said gtg she told me that they have something over there that is llgt which all the words are in German and not English and it is some way of saying goodbye for a while. Where do you think the first ones came from?|||Wiener Dog Nation of course!!! :)|||They came from loud mouth people|||Japan %26amp; US.....maybe South Korea..... definitely not anywhere in Europe.