The reason these videos appeal to people is because it returns some power back to the customer being mistreated.

Any fairly frequent flier will have horror stories of being mistreated by airline or border personnel, and most times the only thing you can do is to put up with it. But NOW, after the United incident, it feels like the customer is no longer as helpless as before and can no longer be mistreated with impunity. This is irrespective of validity of any of the viral videos being circulated.