alt Hacker NewsI think the central message of that article is precisely that he is completing the adventure only because of community encouragement - but that that is the assistance of all the incredible people he met along the way, strangers on the ground who supported him and helped him on his way, and his friends and family at home. The community is the real people on the ground, and it is the real and living community of the humans who inhabit the entire world. The commercial transmissions with you as TV star are totally unnecessary, and actually only get in the way... Thesiger said that the greatest thing about his adventure across the Arabian Desert was his comradeship with the Bedouin. You just can't have that while waiving a selfie-stick and grinning into the camera...
There are incredible people along the way, there are also incredible people watching and cheering on people who vlog. Communities can — and very much should — be much larger than just who you happen to have found yourself physically near.
And yes, I can assure you, you can absolutely have both while engaging in blogging, vlogging, serialized writing, or any other form of serialized expression.
Not all of vlogging has any relationship to your straw man.