Why do people sound off on Twitter? Kim Kardashian's Twitter rant explained

Ranting on social media, especially Twitter, has become something of a new art form, and there's no better titan of the Twitter tirade than Kanye West.

Not to mention his wife, Kim Kardashian,  who's suddenly having a Twitter tantrum because she's the target of jokes and slams — from Bette Midler and Piers Morgan, among others — for her penchant for tweeting nude selfies.

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She let loose with snarky tweets of her own Tuesday, plus another nude of herself, and a boast about her assets worthy of Donald Trump.

But all this metaphorical shrieking online, while hugely entertaining to many, leads to questions about the emotional well-being of some ranters, not to mention the level of discourse in our culture. Even the presidential race has devolved into a mess of sophomoric and vulgar taunts, often on Twitter.

Kim and Kanye, and their fellow ranters (Azealia Banks, Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, Amber Rose, Rebel Wilson, to name just a few), however, are talking trash about stuff far less consequential than the presidency.

But what is the benefit of periodic paroxysms of Twitter twaddle, aimless babbling or venting of rage in 140 characters? Is this really good for the twaddlers, babblers and ragers?

Rob Shuter, a publicist-turned-gossip columnist, is all too familiar with the celebrity species of ranters. Now an online blogger as TheNaughtyGossip.com, Shuter says many of the celebs he has worked with "love a good rant," and this was way before Twitter.

If a celeb just rants to people on her payroll — people who have to listen — well, no harm done. But now she can be florid in her ranting and everyone knows.

"Twitter allows people to get inside of who you truly are — it shines a spotlight," Shuter says. "Some celebrities, if they have time on their hands and they're alone, that's when they're the most dangerous (on Twitter). They find themselves on airplanes with nothing to do for hours. They have a huge ego, and (here's a) way to express it."

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Twitter has given rise to a new area of psychology and psychologists who study the phenomenon of social-media ranting. Not only do plenty of non-celebs do it, there are actually websites — "rant-sites," such as justrage.com  — dedicated to enabling people to vent in public about, well, whatever ticks them off.

Why do we rant,  and do we rant more because of Twitter?

"The short-term answer is that people do it because it feels good in the moment," says Ryan Martin, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and co-author of the paper Anger on the Internet: The Perceived Value of Rant-Sites.

Jennifer Golbeck, an associate professor who studies social media at the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies, says humans have always ranted; now they can rant to millions instead of just those within shouting distance.

Social media provides an outlet, she says, "when you're alone and upset and your spouse no longer wants to hear. I can rant against the airlines and everyone can see me yelling at the airlines. And culturally that means it's OK to do it."

Martin says that after venting, "people say they feel calm, relaxed, relieved, and that's consistent with what we've known about human beings for thousands of years or more."

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The long-term consequence is that it's bad for us, he says. "Because it feels good, it becomes our go-to expression, but it also keeps us thinking about our angry thoughts. We fall back on it and use it again and again, even when it’s going to get us in trouble."

Plus, Golbeck says, many studies show that ranting eventually makes the ranter feel worse. "If you just wait two minutes, your anger levels go down," she says. "Venting may not make you feel better (over the long term), but it does make you do it more, because you're angry, and, hey, a whole audience is listening to me! It’s a cycle."

Ranter-in-chief these days surely has to be West, who has in the space of a few months engaged in multiple Twitter spats with other celebs, ranging from Wiz Khalifa to Taylor Swift, and sent out bursts of a dozen stream-of-consciousness tweets at a time, moaning about his money problems, promoting his latest album/video/fashion line, comparing himself to Picasso and indulging in extended bouts of paranoia mixed with egomania.

On Monday,  he declared the CD dead, announced that his music would be streamed only from now on, and then went off on his need "to be me."

Is such flamboyant tweet-ranting good for a celeb brand? If celebrities think it is, they're wrong, Shuter says.

"It's a mistake, because it always comes across as angry," he says. "There is something to be said about clear, thoughtful, consistent thoughts, especially if you're trying to sell product or make a point in as few words as possible."