Excitement and adventure, maybe?
I was given a cheapie Chromebook last summer, which allowed me to spend more time reading news and politics during the election cycle. I hate the keyboard on the thing, so I avoided the usual range of sites, where I would want to log in to comment and post. I ended up drawn to the fascinating cesspool of Reddit's r/politics, where I had a chance to observe folks who were really wrapped up in the Wikileaks stuff.
They all seemed to share a tremendous excitement at being able to examine and assess the leaked materials firsthand. Pretty much all of them accepted the interpretations of and conclusions about the material that were handed to them by the RW media, but they seemed to feel like they were doing serious investigative work themselves, and they were thrilled to at least feel like they were contributing to a cause.
Maybe they felt like they were part of a shared project, because of this. I've been active, in the past, at some computer programming forums, where we sometimes collaborated on community projects. These really generated a sense of unity, an excitement at being part of a group that is getting things done. I suppose the same sort of feeling abounds at places like 4chan, with all the memes and whatnot -- and there was plenty of 4channiness present in the online Alt-Right movement during the election. They felt like they were part of something as active participants, by dredging through the hacked material or creating and promoting their memes. The "Deplorables" speech seemed to give them a sense of unity, and even folks who were ostensibly on our side openly rose to the defense of Pepe the frog.
So... maybe folks value the sense of engagement the hacked material offered them. Maybe people just like gossip and other people's dirty laundry. I dunno. It's been interesting, and scary, to watch this happening.
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