I paid myself with @zingtoken for my time spent on the project when it was doing good funding wise and hive was looking a bit healthier price wise. Since then I've stopped and have been buying up vials to further fund the project. It's all quite transparent and DAO-ish, people contributing to the project get rewards. Similar to authors contributing to the community. It's not based on who delegates or who is buying tokens or votes like your friend was which you suddenly appeared straight after.

It's hard to take brand new accounts serious as they're obviously just out there to waste time given the circumstances and timing of your appearance. Thus just use your main account if you want people to bother explaining things to you.