The engaging with the community isn't so that you can make a petition that says, "Are you cool with my game [Y/N]" and have everyone on the Internet sign it. It's so that you can create something which demonstrates an awareness of the culture and doesn't come off as derivative and shallow to the people who deal in it daily and care to defend it.

If he had made a post on Reddit or talked to anyone on 4chan and said "I want to make a meme-themed iOS game, help me make it not suck" and listened, he probably would have wound up making something that did not entice people to mock him and insult him. That's what I mean about engaging.