I think there's a time when you should give up or re-evaluate. But then again: I'm a fan of the idea that you should plan to be a GM second and a participant first.

If you don't have a clique to be a member of and people to bounce ideas off of it can be difficult to really get anything moving. The best thing to do would be to join other RPs and acquaint yourself with others on a professional basis at least, or within a genre. Whenever you want to try and be a GM these people can help to get an RP off the ground (or even into the interest check phase if they like the idea) and can be the core of the first members.

I understand people want some semblance of power by being the big boy on the internet but it's truthfully not worth it when so many do and there's so many other RPs that might be doing that field much better.