let me google that for you

People on the internet have very different standards as to when and how it's okay to ask a question. There are roughly two camps:

Search first: the first step to answering any question is to do extensive research using Google, Wikipedia, etc. Only when you're sure that there's no easily accessible answer already out there is it okay to bother actual humans.

Ask first: the first step to answering any question is to ask people who might know the answer on your forum of choice: twitter, reddit, etc. They'll be able to point you to the right resources, unpack context or tacit knowledge that might not be explicitly written down, and address your specific points of confusion or even tell you that you're actually asking the wrong question.

Most people fall somewhere between these camps; there's some judgement in determining how much research to do before asking any particular question.

The 'let me Google that for you meme' reflects that many communities consider it rude to ask a question whose answer is easily Google-able. Internet natives (nerds) like me tend to have the instinct that:

• People's time and energy is valuable and shouldn't be wasted on trivial questions.
• Internet forums are building up a knowledge base and duplicate questions are inefficient clutter (stackoverflow is the prototypical example of this mindset).
• I don't want to appear stupid by asking a question that I should have already been able to answer (or reason out) for myself.

On the other hand, many of the most successful people I know are very willing to ask 'stupid questions'. This may be a sign of unearned confidence, but it also reflects the instinct that:

• Intellectual community is a flow, not a stock. Many people will learn something new by reading / hearing the discussion even if a similar discussion is sitting in the archives somewhere.
• Asking a question that someone can answer is a gift, not a burden. It gives them the opportunity to sharpen their own understanding, since communication is processing, and it allows them to feel helpful, needed, like their existence has a purpose.
• Asking a question can be the start of a conversation: it creates shared intellectual ground from which you can drill deeper. It allows people with different perspectives to chime in, so that everyone learns some new ways to think about things.
• You learn a lot by re-discovering or re-inventing things from first principles, even if the answer is already 'known'.