A purpose that only works with applause will die the first quiet week.

Anything sustained by response is at the mercy of the response. Applause is intermittent by nature, and the weeks where nobody notices arrive regularly and without warning. If the reason you were doing it was the reaction, that week ends it. What survives is whatever you would still do with the audience removed.

Test it on purpose. Do the thing once this week and tell nobody at all, no post, no mention. If it still feels worth doing, you have something durable, and if it does not, that is useful to know now.