Internal vs External Approval

Do you seek approval from others to feel good about something you do? Or do you seek approval only from yourself? This is definitely something that I have struggled with and I think it's an interesting and difficult concept.

Let's take my recent EVIL level. If I make an "evil" level, I know that it will bring tons of laughs to loads of people who never play it, because they only have to watch a quick youtube reaction compilation and that's it.

But, lots of streamers will hate it because it's.... evil. Maybe some people feel obligated to play it but really they don't want to, and they just kinda have a bad bad time instead of a "funny cursing Carl's name" bad time. Then their viewers will have a bad time, too. Some people will say "Why make an evil level anyway?" when I could have made an easy/gentle/funny troll level instead that traditional troll players would love. Or I could have made a new introductory kaizo college level that loads of folks would find satisfying to clear and feel good about themselves afterwards. And if I am gonna make an evil level, couldn't I have thought of a "better idea" instead of making a sequel to my first evil level. As you can see, if you look, you can always find reasons why whatever you do "could have been better."

Pleasing everyone is not possible. If I had made a gentle troll level or an intro kaizo level, then these types of levels don't make great reaction compilations. This is important to me because one of MY OWN goals for making this sort of video is to shine a spotlight on a lot of up and coming streamers. But beyond that, "easier" levels aren't appealing at all to certain parts of the Mario community that are very important to me. For instance, most kaizo players who play romhacks would be beyond bored and uninterested with easy levels... or I'd just be doing something dozens of other people have already done (there are loads of awesome intro kaizo hacks these days). On the other hand, if I make a difficult platforming challenge, players who enjoy that challenge will derive a lot of satisfaction from beating it.

In the end, if I try to please everyone, I will never find that approval. After seeing my latest evil level, Defender was probably shaking his head wondering where I went astray. On the other hand, Shoujo probably felt like a badass one-shotting the end, and then clearing true ending -- because she is a badass.

If instead I ask myself: why did I do this in the first place? What are MY OWN goals, instead of looking at other people's? My goals with these levels/videos are always: 1) to bring the community together to do something loads of folks can have a shared experience with -- TacoRemix sharing stories about each of the people in the portraits was phenomenal; 2) to produce a video that helps up and coming streamers get exposure and grow their channels; 3) and to make viewers laugh. I accomplished all of those goals.