You should ask yourself if you only play root. I can name quite many bands in which losing the bass player would change nothing. If you're not, then yes these people are retards and do not appreciate you
And yeah a lot of people who aren't that much into music can't tell what the bass does. Or to them anyway its all just guitar. I remember when i started i had family members who didn't even actually know what a bass was. At some point an aunt said something like "oh it's the really long guitar thing isn't it?" And they'd ask you to play them a song ASSUMING that it would be just like you know, playing three chords song around the campfire and everyone could all sing along. Not realising they wouldn't recognize any song i might play because they wouldn't be aware of the bassline. And even after i'd been playing for years and she'd been forced, when i lived at home, to hear me play the damn thing my mom couldn't really tell in a song right offhand what the bass was doing. And i'm not talking bands in which they play root. She was a huge beatles fan in her teens and she knew bass was the thing McCartney played but hell if she could tell you the line he played in any song. It's pretty depressing.
Even my gf who is defintiely a music lover but doesn't play (though she's a great singer and has done it on stage), early on the first few times we met, at some point she asked me to play some bass and i'd play basslines of songs she'd know and half the time she couldn't guess them right. I mean at least she knew she knew the songs but she found them hard to guess just on basslines (some she did though, the super obvious ones, I remember her being delighted i was playing Blur's Boys and Girls)
So yeah, to the average person, our job as bassist is either obscure or unknown.
