I think it's true that fighting and martyring oneself has always been an appealing fantasy for young men, the people who joined ISIS and became suicide bombers weren't simply brainwashed, they bought into what ISIS was selling of their own volition.

On the smaller scale it’s actually enjoyable, especially when your community praises you for it. In the adult world it’s heavily cracked down upon but it’s still semi common among minors.

My personal example is beating up two kids back in highschool cause theyd been regularly picking on my sister that was 3-4 years younger than them. I’d already told them off previously and my parents had complained too both the school and the kid’s own parents but nothing changed. So I kept and eye on them and after school on the way home I caught them pushing my sister and her friend around. Other kids were watching but wouldn’t get involved. I ran up and shoulder charged one of them and started laying into the other one.

I won’t bother going on describing the blow by blow but the result was they never bothered my sister or her friends again. Everyone who saw the fight praised me for “doing the right thing”. As word got around about what happened my reputation noticeably increased and people in my own grade who used too give me grief treated me better. I felt indifferent about the actual fight but the combination of knowing I’d protected someone I cared about and the praise by my peers honestly felt great.