It works best on young men who are socially, romantically and sometimes financially struggling. It gives them a sense of power and belonging to the state, something greater than themselves. The same mechanisms that make this propaganda successful can be used (willingly or organically) to cause the effected individual to take other actions. Here someone wanted to brag so they leaked secrets online. One would argue people like Timothy McVeigh were similar, with much different results.
That's why I said sometimes financial, because there are people who are well off or at least have it together financially that can still be exploited with propaganda.
Further reading:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- https://archive.org/details/aberrationinhear0000pain/page/70...