The forums are right there in your face telling you things, and you're trying to find your place within a community. A lot of us get influenced by them and the results of that are a subjective mix of good and bad.
Something I've wanted to bring up:
Anyway, there was a huge crowd so I have a feeling the RP praise will be rolling in soon. I'm actually a little conflicted on posting samples now because I feel like if somebody is doing something awesome and you want your character to see it, there's an IC solution for that.
And something from unrelated conversations, which I feel shows the other end of the scale
Imagine if I wanted to have a ship with a crew. Good [Moonflame™, censoring your swears since 2014] luck with recruiting a crew.
Now imagine that Axiom's character came and wanted to recruit someone, OMG, they would [Moonflame™] break their keyboards just to get on board.
I do not get more active when I see someone famous. Like when my character X ran into Y. X didn't talk with Y at all, as Y was not interesting to X. Even though I was curious to meet them, I didn't allow it to influence the way I play.
I would argue that a lot of characters who aren't famous have the potential to be pretty awesome in one way or another, and they don't play in a way that attracts popularity but it doesn't make them any less worth playing with. I patiently struggled a lot to get responses sometimes, when a few words from a respected player on the forums might have had people flocking to me IC and throwing RP hooks. So my advice is to stand your ground and be as proactive and encouraging of RP towards that random person in your town as you would be if The Ice Sisters rocked up and you wanted their attention. If someone really doesn't respond or they want to be a simmer, then sure, don't waste your energy. But don't overlook people, show them that you're willing and have ideas that others can contribute to, that you don't want to be overlooked.
I was very encouraged when characters emoted or spoke to me in ways that were specific to them as characters, no matter how active they were. That just pulled RP out of me like a magician pulls a string of colourful handkerchiefs out of where the hell ever. I tried to be more like that, it worked with some of my characters more easily than others.
Edit: JAM, is your avatar wearing pants or not? I need reassurance.