The Internet has to be one of the best inventions to come out of the latter half of the 20th Century. Need a recipe? Google. Want a new hairstyle? Google. Want to see Kim Kardashian wearing furry sandals with leather pants? (Kanye…dude…no) Yeah, you know where this is going. With all the known information of the world just a few keyboard taps and mouse clicks away, we are able to be knowledgeable about anything we choose. Yet, with this positive comes a nuisance — the evolution of the Know-It-All.

The Know-It-All is the person we can expect to come off more informed than they really are. That old Socratic sentiment that a wise man is one who knows that he doesn’t know everything has to be as foreign to them as Aramaic (but I’m sure they’d tell us they dabbled in learning the lost language once). These days such folks are known as Google Scholars. They draw up a Wikipedia page, read the introductory paragraph and crown themselves an expert on the matter at hand.

Don’t ever bother trying to tell a Know-It-All that some of the things they think they know so well, they don’t know at all. How dare you try to make them appear to be less than they really are? They don’t know that its okay to be corrected, to learn something new, to try to understand that what they could have read or learned was outdated or not detailed enough. How do you cope with someone who is not willing to cop to a mistake?

I started noticing this little phenomenon with my increasing use of social media. I started to realize that there would be people who always had some “facts” that they would want to drop in a discussion. At first, I was really impressed by these types, and felt intellectually inferior to them. They seemed so well-versed in everything imaginable. Science, art, pop culture, hidden gems of history. And then one day, someone used the term “Google Scholar” with me, and my little bubble was depleted. And after finding that some were quoting sites like Wikipedia verbatim in their lectures, I could not help but laugh that someone would go to such extremes just to come off to be more than they are.

I’ve learned that it is best to deal with these types of people in small doses. Just as I am not situated to comprehend the basic contents of physics (no thanks to my college professor), I am not well equipped to deal with those who think that they know everything there is to know; those who are so unhappy with who they are that they attempt to take on airs of superiority by putting on airs. That kind of arrogance is simply not my cup of tea. Give me friends who know that they do not know everything. Who do not seek to impress all they meet with their infinite well of consciousness. After all, its the continuance of schooling, the deprogramming and reprogramming of ourselves that gives this mad thing called life its mystery and openness.

So, tell us readers: How do you deal with the Know-It-Alls?

More on Madame Noire!

• Where Are They Now? 8 Sassy And Silly Sidekicks From Some Of Our Favorite Black Sitcoms
• Finding Food In Your Bra And 6 Other Big-Breasted Girl Problems
• Do We Allow Men To Be The Fathers We Ask Them To Be?
• True Story: I Dated A Man With Horribly Bad Breath And Lived To Write About It
• True Life: My Birth Control Gave Me Crazy Side Effects
• Nobody Likes A Negative Nancy: Are You Optimistic About Dating?
• Did You Know They Dated (Part IV)? 14 Celeb Couples We Were VERY Surprised By

The Occupy Wall Street protestors seem to be a little confused about just who the 99% are. Members of the movement occupied a vacant Brooklyn home they assumed was foreclosed on by the bank and offered it to a homeless family in December, but when the rightful owner of the home, Wise Ahadzi, explained that he has been renting a home in a nearby neighborhood while he works to pay off the mortgage on the home, the protestors had no sympathy.

“Occupy Wall Street, along with local neighbors and community groups, has pledged to stay with the family and defend them from eviction,” protestors wrote on their website, occupyourhomes.org.

When Wise asked why the protestors wouldn’t fight for him—a victim of the foreclosure crisis himself who lost his job in 2009 and has been struggling to keep up with mortgage payments on the $455,000 home he purchased in 2007, he was told he doesn’t qualify for their help because he isn’t part of “an organization” or homeless.

So who does qualify? Alfredo Carrasquillo, 27, a husband and father of two who was given Wise’s home. The criminal justice organizer works for a New York grassroots organization called the Voices of Community Activists and Leaders that collaborates with the occupy movement to find affordable housing. Since the group occupied the home on December 6, they have made a number of renovations which includes knocking down walls and moving Wise’s furniture around in preparation for the Carrasquillo family to move in. But six weeks later, the family is reported to only occasionally stay at the home, and the occupiers have since told Wise they have no plans to purchase the home from him.