[dmix]

It also helps that PKK are ostensibly fighting a series of authoritarian govs combined with the fact westerners are shielded by the natural disconnection and "othering" of the consequences of political violence happening to citizens in a far-off country they have no personal connection to. It makes it easier to not care they've killed hundreds of civilians, heavily recruited child soldiers, etc when you can more easily focus on the group being founded by a political-prisoner who flirts with trendy radical academia-friendly economics.

Plenty of normal people are victim to this sort of flirting with ideas rather than confronting the reality on the ground. You see the same sort of thing with people who (or at least used to) defend Russia for being tough, when in IRL it was mostly a persuasive sheen on top of a cheap mafia state.