More is less in China's emoji world

An attempted military coup in Turkey, the killing of dozens of holidaymakers in southern France and tensions over the South China Sea, among other world headlines, have so far defined July. The month has been both brutal and newsy.

But amid the real-world conflicts, the so-called World Emoji Day was marked online on July 17 in praise of the ideograms that are used - often as replacements for words - on smartphone apps and other forms of electronic messaging. The informal annual event was first held in 2014.

Twitter, Instagram and Facebook carried the #worldemojiday hashtag, with online communities encouraged to host emoji-character parties, presumably offline as well (dancing-woman/man silhouette here). The British tabloid Daily Mail had photos of Kim Kardashian since the former US reality TV star has a line of emojis in her name (ugh).