Imposter Syndrome

I guess y'all have already heard enough people yap about "free healthcare in Euope", but ... when I listened to you talk about getting braces at close to 30 years old, and the awkward moments because of academics from wealthy backgrounds meeting 1st gen-academics from a poor background, I thought: That's one more problem (in a society like the US) that simply does not exist where I live, even for kids from the poorest of all families out there, literally. And it's also a perfect example of the point that those greedy people who dislike welfare don't understand at all: the whole society is better off if no one is lost because of economic hurdles, lost for science, or politics, or medicine, or whatever else.

I have so much respect for you talking with such patience and calmness about many seriously enraging societal problems like poverty, sexism, racism, harassment and more. It helps so much to see that others experience kind of similar things.

Imposer syndrome is a curious one. I experience it as an engineer with X years of experience should know Y. Because I don't know Y, am I worth my title. It helped me focus on filling gaps, and learning a lot of things, but the feeling doesn't really go away. Furthermore, having to prove yourself (to yourself?) will just result in a burnout. Believing your burnout isn't a real burnout and you are just lazy. Celebrating the victories is important, but cutting yourself some slack, and the awareness you cannot know everything is where I expect the solution is to internal imposter syndrome to be. (I've not implemented the solution yet, I'm such an imposter.)

You are definitely a youtuber. Open and shut case. And there are definitely youtubers out there whose videos / lighting / audio / are more polished than yours. But given that there is no shortage of technically polished content on YT while it's hard to find creators like you that really tell amazing stories, are incredibly knowledgeable, authentic, hilarious, funny, relatable ... given that situation, I consider myself lucky that I came across you. Btw. it was a mention by someone on Steve Shives' channel that brought me to you. Not himself, I think it was a guest? Either Jessie Gender or Dana Cole. On the topic of the Picard series, they said that your almost 4 hour long video was a must for any ST nerd out there. And I stayed for the physics, but I also watch all the book videos even though I'm not a reader of books currently. I just love the way you braindump so many thoughts - and I know that you are still probably holding back about 95 % !! I can so relate.

Incredible. I never looked at imposter syndrome in that way, even though I learned to spot racism, misogyny, classism etc. in our daily lives, literally every single day. And it's even more stinging now, in the early months of the #45 Trump admin, because the GOP MAGA fascists are now even more openly blaming the victims of being the cause of a problem and pour oil into the fire by telling their supporters that they will make the victims pay for the crimes committed against them. Doesn't matter if it's a Turkish fellowship student or Zelensky or POCs or women or queer people. Journalists will be next, anyone trying to right societal wrongs.

@acollierastro, I have not been able to watch this video. It doesn’t ever load.

I'm a teacher, and during covid, I made some videos for my classes. They don't look good. It's hard making good-looking videos. Your videos are ahead.

This essay is one of my favorites. I do like the hard science. But, I've felt like an impostor at times, and yes, I find that many of my peers felt something similar sometimes. So, you made me sift. I did take some classes in psychology & neuroscience. Much that we know of brain function came from clinical happenstance. As I understand it, often abnormal symptoms are normal until they are debilitating. Here's the thought that works for me. If I'm doing the thing, & I'm comfortable being where I am, that does make me not an impostor. Of course, if I'm not accepted, I'm uncomfortable. Everyone thinks I'm smart. I know better. This qualifies me as an actual impostor, doesn't it? Well, it turns out I scored well on tests because of my early life experience. I became an avid reader because I was a loner, read all the Newbury awards, all the Oz books, the whole children's section, & was well into the adult section by middle school. Mostly Sci Fi, but Jack London, Hemingway, Twain, Poe, Dickens, Kipling, you get the idea. I was "years ahead" of my peers. I thought I was smart. I also thought I was great at math, so I majored in it. I didn't change my major, but did take a lot of computer courses & had worked as a coder for SLAC & for Don Knuth. I was having fun, was good at it, & it was my career. No regrets. If I had "impostor" symptoms, they weren't debilitating enough to make me wish I'd gone on to a PhD in Math. I'd have done OK. It just wasn't the life I wanted, as it turned out.

Also, 24:48 is hilarious..

I believe the short version of the Dunning Kruger effect takedown is that DK effect is when people with low skill overestimate their skill. Well, mathematically, it's easy to overestimate your skill when your skill is low just because of how numbers work. Like, I probably understand 5% of the DK takedown, but if I were to estimate I understand 15% of it, that's still overestimating my skill, even though I rate myself as understanding it badly.

I don't really understand enough statistics to prove it, but this post (does it count as a 'paper'?) https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/04/08/the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-autocorrelation/ seems to be a well presented take down of the Dunning Kruger effect. My experience of imposter syndrome, as a 40 something white guy techie in Australia, mostly vanished to a vague fear of being 'found out' and fired when I started working for federal government, cos I met a lot of people who purport to have tech skills, but just don't, and I started getting asked a lot 'how do you know all this stuff?' about all sorts of random topics that folks talk about at lunch. I'm just like, I read about it? This is apparently something that people around me don't actually do a hell of a lot of. Knowing a little bit about a lot, and a lot about a little bit (linux sysadmin in my case), appears rare. Oviously, I like your content enough to be a patron, so yeah, I think you do a great job :)

I really appreciate what you said here. I have had similar conversations about class as a component of a career with people in the entertainment and software industry, and it is much the same.

probably most prevalent in inexperienced youth in stressed work environments (idk)

I think this may have been my favorite of all your videos because you shared a lot about your background and insecurities. I think your videos look great and the sound is totally fine. You may know this but what you described about just "being with" the feeling that you are an imposter is called "mindfulness" in clinical psychology. I find it works as well. I also find meditation really helps and I used to be completely skeptical about it. Then my therapist (who understands how to convince me) said "well wouldn't the scientific thing be to try it (meditation) and see if it works?" and I did and it does. Also, I audited a class on cognitive neuroscience and one of the little side things in the textbook talked about meditation and how experiments showed new pathways between the "higher level" and areas for things like controlling muscles. Essentially, it was evidence that meditation helps with impulse control which has also been my experience. It helps me step back from my immediate reaction which could be to get high or get angry rather than to act rationally. Also, I think even those guys that we think are super confident probably feel a bit of "imposter syndrome" or maybe just call it self doubt. Because that is the difference between a good scientist or engineer and say a good sales person. A good sales person believes absolutely everything they say. But to be a good scientist or engineer you need to have some self doubt because if you are too confident you won't scrutinize your ideas and see their flaws and if you are too confident you may just reject criticism rather than be open to it and use it to make your ideas better.

I really feel the coming from a different financial background in science story. Thanks for talking about that. Also, the second stage of imposter syndrome is definitely very real! As you say, I believe having it just a little bit is natural and not weird at all. Many things in psychology/psychiatry: many very common traits are considered a disease or a syndrome when they are present in a way that causes the person ‘harm’. As for future content, I would love to hear a video of yours about the influence of poverty, on cognition, and the self fulfilling/perpetuating problems associated with being poor. Thinking about this article, for instance: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/sendhil/files/976.full_.pdf

I love your videos! Cant believe I have been knitting while watching all of them and suddenly you start knitting too haha

It was really sad hearing about the hardships you experienced. I'm really happy that you got yourself out of poverty. Good job, that's not easy.

I don’t know if you keep track of such things, but your appearance on Probably (not) Aliens was my first introduction to you and what led me to your youtube channel.

My wife is a knitter (...and a weaver, and she does crochet, and she spins her own yarn, and she picked up pottery one summer, and...), and she's constantly pointing out tiny "mistakes" in her knitting (...and weaving, and...) that I would never ever ever have noticed if she hadn't pointed them out, and even when she does point them out half the time I can't tell anyway, but she knows way more about knitting (...and weaving, and...) than I do, so I just take her word on it that there's a mistake at the place she's pointing to. Anyway, telling you what I usually tell her; Your knitting looks fine to me! But I might have bad eyes so who knows.

I just finished listening to your guest podcast appearance. I totally teared up listening to how it was described how you make videos for a version of yourself and how I've told people in my life that everything I do for other people is because I see myself in them and want to selfishly help "me". Anyway, you're my role model and I really click with your personality ❤️

I enjoyed it and thought it was a good topic. Your handling of the paper was exactly the kind of stuff I've been enjoying - your opinions on other scientists. Your anecdotes illustrated imposter syndrome in an individual fashion. This is all okay. Go where you wanna go.

tbh ill watch whatever kind of content u want to put out, I'm not a scientist and don't have a great understanding of science i just have a casual interest in it (like the majority of non-science people lol) the topics you talk about are interesting and the way u talk about them and your personality is fun. most of the things you talk about are totally new to me esp when you're talking about the stuff that happens in fields of science rather than actual scientific concepts. i liked your video about glass a lot, i never knew about these professional glassblowers in science and everything that goes into it i think its sick as hell.

im watching this while drawing and u knitting in the vid feels like were gossiping. but parasocially <3 I think there's a difference between imposter syndrome and healthy self-reflection like you described at some point. imposter syndrome is irrational and not really based in reality, like that example u gave of "they just gave me this PhD because they felt bad for me," theres no logical reason for someone to believe that, its just their insecurity making them think that way.

WRT imposter syndrome, I just forwarded one of your videos to my niece who’s struggling a bit in college. I’m using your career as an example of “hey, you don’t have to major in computer science (like me). There are lots of paths. Here is a woman who started in physics and has done many cool things since!” If your example helps my wonderful niece, that should definitely be a check mark under the “not an imposter” column! 🙂

This was actually pretty comforting for me honestly 😊 I'm just starting to attempt to get a physics degree in my mid thirties because it was just never possible before now for me due to untreated ADHD and other things and I've definitely been feeling like I don't belong, I think I'm probably like the same age as some of my lecturers! Definitely internal for me, everyone has been great and me being older hasn't even come up.

I love how bad the lighting is in this video! 😂😂😂 jk, you're doing great! Keep up the good vibes!

I was late to finish undergrad at 35, and one of “the experienced set” in my MBA program - in both I felt like an impostor, even though I was literally the top of my class. I own a business now, and yup, impostor, too. It’s real. And it happens to men. I really liked your perspective on women of color: sometimes it’s not internalized doubt, when you’re actually the one from outside.

so much of this resonated with me. I dropped out of my undergrad program in my early 20s due to being broke as hell and trying to work full time while going to school. Now I am 37 trying to finish my physics BS. I feel like I never know what's going on and I assume give me As because they feel bad for me for being old. Regardless, I always feel a bit embarrassed to even be there and I've almost dropped out like 10 times in the last year.

This was a great video. I got my undergrad in psych/behavioral neuroscience, so I had read that study already, and my prof ripped into it just as much. When I got to graduate school (Physiology and Neuroscience), I asked one of my prof's what they did to combat imposter syndrome (if anything). They had no idea what I was talking about and said that it sounds completely stupid (they were a straight white man who I later found out was *very* sexist). For my PhD, I completely jumped from neuroscience to developmental biology, where we study early embryonic patterning (with a focus on the absolute travesty that is the spine/vertebra), and I was the newest member of the lab for a while. Everyone else had been there for 2+ years, but two things have really helped deal with the more fleeting thoughts of being an imposter. The first is that everyone in the lab understands that this is an incredibly complex topic and people are encouraged and made to feel comfortable saying 'I don't get this, can you explain?' without feeling like an idiot. The second is that, for my project(s), I have come up with possible explanations for results we were not at all expecting, and he''s said that they are good ideas and have followed up on them (he's also a straightforward Turkish man who, I know, would not just say that to make me feel better, so it helps). Also, if you ever want to learn crochet or want yarn recommends, I am happy to give the YouTube channel that I learned from (crochet) and shops that I go to for buying! I struggle with needle knitting, so I did loom knitting for a long time before learning crochet. I'm left handed, so I struggled with videos of right handed people teaching crochet (cause it's flipped). (Also sorry for the super long comment).

This was great! I am also a youtube imposter though I definitely don't have a following, and I'm also scared of those comments. I appreciate, as always, your candor and ideas. Stay awesome.

I used to have impostor syndrome as a dude, but at some point I kinda stopped giving a shit, and I kinda just felt, this is what y'all going to get. Like, if that canonical moment actually came and someone confronted me and told me I'm a phony and I can't really do things and I'm not even good, I would be like, yeah perhaps, this is what ya'll getting, if you don't like it, then sucks to be you. So I guess I just "downgraded" everyone else to fix my impostor syndrome haha.

As someone who watches a lot of Youtube, a type of comment I see quite often is, like, "Explaining How You're Great" comments, like, "This channel is so great because [insert reasons]" and the "because" part really jumps out at me and I wonder where people find the confidence and conviction to write this type of comment, like they're a market expert or something. And it doesn't read like "this is what I like", it reads like "this is what is good"... And it always gets a lot of likes, although maybe we can blame Gell-Mann effect lol. One of your vids had some man in the comments give you advice in this way and I can't remember exactly which one it is anymore but it gave me weird vibes. Anyways I don't think these people are actually market experts like they seem to believe they are. Also, I don't think truly "bad quality" Youtube videos would never pop off like yours do, because they're not fun to listen to or watch. But I don't really know what I'm talking about lol.

Angela, thank you for making this video. I especially appreciated your discussion of family and socioeconomic factors with respect to Impostor syndrome, and your personal experiences, like never having had braces or flown on a plane. This is real stuff that happens to lots of people and, unfortunately, is not talked about much. I can relate. Your unique point of view and experiences are valuable and should be shared. That is 100% why I joined your Patreon. I hope you continue to create content with your unique voice, background and perspective.

I have role-played to talk myself out of imposter syndrome and many other kinds of negative self-talk. You know how when your friend makes a mistake you never say "You SHOUD feel bad, you dumb dumb" you say something like "Hey, man, you're doing a great job. Don't let this one thing get you down."? Just do that but to yourself. Be your own friend. Not profound, I know, but it took me to about age 34 to figure this out. Also, a note of encouragement (I hope): Ms. Collier, there's one aspect of being a YouTuber you can't imposter syndrome your way out of and that's the fact that you're a charismatic person. You have interesting things to say, but you're also relatable and likeable and, as far as online media is concerned, that's money in the fucking bank. This is what the Platonic ideal of YouTube is for me: rad people just telling me about the rad things they're interested in. That's all I want. So that's why I'm a patron and I'll listen to you talk about a cool toaster you bought if that's what you're feeling that day. Cheers.

I'd say the feeling of the imposter syndrome is somehow grounded, because unfortunately most of the people are somehow wrong most of the time, even the smartest ones. E.g. think about string theory again, its creators were the smartest of the smartest, they won the debates, they won the attention and the support of the public, they won prestigious prices and currently there is a good chance in 50 years they will become jokes. People will laugh loudly at them. Part of the problem is they never emphasis for little children how messy and occasional and debatable our science, art, etc. are, so they never realize they are neither worse nor better than the people who did these things before them, and even if they win every battle and and they do everything right, there is no guarantee and way to know on which side of the history they end up, so they shouldn't be anxious about it.

Is just me that got sad/disappointed on the part where Dr. Collier talk about having to delete 500 mean comments per video? Like even with so many years on the internet i was surprised to see how polite, intelligent and helpful the comment section was Had no idea She had to filter it Who have anything bad to say or think about her videos? Must be a bunch of crackpot antiscience sexist people

Just chiming in to say that as someone who really enjoys science content but barely passed high school physics, your non-science videos have been some of my favorite stuff (the chess & LOTR ones especially!). I'm sure I'm not alone in this! Re impostor syndrome, the part about not trying to compete with geniuses resonated, because one thing that's helped me think about it as a musician was hearing a friend who's a physicist (and musician) talk about being around the REALLY scary smart scientists, or scary talented musicians, and recognizing the vast majority of us will not be like that so we just have to find our niche and work it.

Great video. It was really cool to hear your thoughts on being a youtuber, especially those anecdotes about interacting with other youtubers and how the things you've been focusing on end up just being like... "oh yeah that happens" from the others. Kinda crazy how different our perceptions of a task/hobby/job can be when we're just starting out. As a side note, I think it's probably a good move to hesitate on the whole making videos about random interests thing. I'm def one of the people who gravitates toward your content because of the physics/science lean of it. I wouldn't want to hear a "Top 3 Movies List" replace a more physics-based video. But at the end of the day, this is your hobby. You should do whatever you enjoy doing. I'm gonna close with saying that I think you're a great storyteller, you're very relatable, and you have an amazing way of explaining things that respects the nuance of complicated science without sacrificing audience understanding. Even if this whole youtube thing never becomes more than a hobby (which is totes fine), you've already succeeded in being a very high quality science communicator. That's a real achievement.

Knit cam!

I think impostor syndrome primarily comes from our human inability to really model any other person as having the same full, complex inner world that we have. Like, we can believe rationally that other people are as fully human as we are, but I think our brains would overload if we could really intuitively *feel* the full personhood of even one other person. You have to abstract other people a little bit, they become imperfect caricatures of who they actually are internally, and I think a natural consequence of that for most people is a feeling that their fully-realized, complicated inner selves can never measure up to the cartoon versions of all the other folks in our lives. Thanks so much for putting this video out there, even if it makes you feel like an impostor. I'm a small YouTuber/Twitch streamer also so I completely get how it feels to feel like an impostor in this space. Comments are SO mean, when I get an alert that I have a comment I just feel dread before clicking on it. I also totally get the awful feeling you get when people are like "I like how your videos suck! 😉" -- I have a smaller community than you do, still, but I get this kind of feedback from my stream viewers all the time trying to be nice and it makes me want to die inside. It can get hard because it can make you feel kind of... resentful toward the people who give that kind of feedback? Even though as you said in the video they always mean it to be nice. It is a very difficult feeling to square in your head, it creates this kind of hall of mirror positive feedback loop where now you feel bad for having such a negative read of what was intended as a kind comment. I got really excited when you set up a Patreon and had sent you a DM as a fellow small creator like "Hey, let me know if you want to chat about video setups and microphones and stuff!" And now I feel kind of awful if that in any way implied I thought your current setup was bad 😭When I started out, I just really wanted to have somebody at the same level as me to ask those kinds of questions. But like, I say I wanted that? But if one of my viewers was randomly like "Hey dude hit me up if you want help with your webcam and microphone" I would be like ???? Is there a problem with those things????. It's really impostors all the way down! Anyway, your content is great, just to add another voice to the choir--you are not an impostor, keep up the great work!

I like that you mentioned you have fun making, planning, and editing these videos, and *that's* a big part of what makes this channel so engaging. -I stream on twitch entirely for fun, and I've had people ask me how to start, because they "don't know what to stream." They worry about engagement and forming an audience. The problem with that is that if you aren't having fun, people will know and not want to watch. And if you do play [popular game] and build a community, that community will vanish as soon as you play something you actually wanted to play. -So like, you're doing what's engaging for you and people absolutely flock to that. Keep doing what you love and people will keep watching.

Here's the thing, for me: I honestly do think that in a certain sense (not in every sense), I AM an impostor. I really believe that I don't spend as much time thinking about physics as most of my colleagues, and that I have fewer skills with programming, simulation, hardware, etc., than almost all of them. I don't think that, like, I was given a PhD, or my current job, because people felt sorry for me. But I genuinely do think that the people around me significantly overestimate my abilities.

love these videos! I always experienced constant imposter syndrom and I "think" it has gotten better but I don't know if it's because I have more experience or because I have got used to this constant feeling... I also hate the name of it.

I (a man, thank you very much paper writers) regularly outsmart myself when trying to realize that Imposter Syndrome is a common phenomenon. While I understand that it is a thing that I should just ignore, I tell myself that the 10% of folks out there cluelessly running into brick walls are also the ones who ignore all the signs that they might be an Imposter. Fun!

I can’t get the video to play. :-/

I think a big part of the issue is a matter of degree. Almost everyone experiences these feelings sometimes, but not everyone has these feelings to the point that it'd be considered a disorder. Similar to how everyone sometimes experiences anxiety, but not everyone has an anxiety disorder. Some people's lives are so negatively affected they need behavioral health interventions because of Imposter Syndrome (something I know you acknowledge), and I think the way the term is used colloquially can be kind of like telling someone living with OCD not to worry about it because everyone is a little OCD. It's over/misuse can be very invalidating. Also, I think if this is something almost everyone experiences to some degree, that'd be a reason to talk more about it, not less. It would probably do a lot to improve understanding if we talked about mental health challenges (both rare and common) a lot more often.

As always a great video. But as a non-knitter, I am really impressed that you were able to knot and talk. Can't wait to see the completed dog sweater.

I think your editing and style is great. You also are really good at storytelling (with the perfect amount of tangents) Excited about the next potential topic. As a programmer who as a hobby designs board games, I frequently find myself creating simulations to test out certain aspects of games and how they might play out (though most often it’s just dice / card probabilities)

Would love to see you do a video on numerical analysis of game strategies!

Thank you for making this. I know this is a super special video just for us super hot dentists but if you ever decide to release it publicly in the future so we can share it with more people, i for one would not be upset.

People experience imposter syndrome because they care about attaining competence. Aren't real imposters just feigning for some ulterior motive? They don't give a damn about competence? You have a real talent for YouTube, your channel wouldn't have skyrocketed otherwise. Just as real writers get rejection letters, having haters is the mark of a genuine YouTuber. You said that making videos is a fun hobby; it shows and is part of your appeal. Please continue to make videos on any topic that interests you and sparks your enthusiasm—I'm so starstruck I'll happily watch it.

Hi Angela, About table-top strategy games: if you haven't seen it already, consider checking Dr. Hannah Fry's Markov Chain solution of Monopoly! It blew my mind. I think there was a team of econ postgrads that were doing something similar with videogames, but that's probably a different beast (imagine game theory and econ applied to Starcraft 2...). Second: I'm finishing a PhD in my 30s. This video resonates so strongly with my experience. I won't go into details, but know that what you say is very cathartic to many of us.

When I went to grad school, there was a written preliminary exam that you were supposed to take in the first 2 years, with most people passing it after 12 or 18 months. But they let you take it in the fall of the first year, right at the beginning, if you wanted. So I did that and I was one of two first-years who passed. However, I barely passed. I was brought into the office of the graduate program director to receive my results, and he said something along the lines of "Well, you passed, buuuuuut...." Like, the minimum passing score was something like 68% and I got 69%. I then had the choice of how to interpret this. I could have thought: "Wow, I'm in the top 10% of my class, nice." Or I could have thought: "Uh oh, I'm in the bottom 10% of people who passed the prelims." Guess which one my brain chose? I felt like a total loser for the next week (even while everyone congratulated me for passing and said how great that was), was worried about my prospects for success for most of the first year, and it wasn't until YEARS later that I realized the more positive way of looking at this even existed.

I also got braces after grad school! Not as expensive as yours but got them at the ripe age of 28 ✌️

Sus

(Finally got the video to play by ditching the app and switching to the website.) Not sure if this is impostor syndrome because it’s about personality not skills. But the first time I got a (private sector) job that was seen as a first rung on the corporate ladder I found I got lots of advice (i.e. criticism) on how to get on. Higher-ups would tell me what kind of clothes to wear, who to sit with in the cafeteria, what things not to say, how to act, etc. And after a while I had a work persona that wasn’t the real me at all. Knowing that my real personality wasn’t what they were looking for guaranteed I couldn’t feel like I belonged. And if people said, “Good job” I couldn’t really feel appreciated because they weren’t complimenting the real me. I think that kind of personality grooming happens a lot and I think it’s ultimately corrosive. Which is why (sorry to give advice here, but really it’s more like a wish) this channel should remain an outlet for what you (Dr. C) want to talk about, done in a way that you enjoy. If that’s the stated intent then you can never be bad at it. And if that eventually drives a few people away that’s a good thing because the people who remain will be the ones who are supportive and polite and delighted with the channel, which will be more fun for everyone. Also, do you think you maybe need two channels? One for science and one for everything else. Like I’d love you to do a video about working at McDonalds. And Twilight Zone episodes. And knitting. p.s. This sucks as a knitting video. You didn’t even aim the camera right. Resign!

Male software developer with a "senior" job title nearing my fifties here, even after nearly two decades in the field I get imposter syndrome on occasion. That paper is insulting tbh

I'm a male dealing with imposter syndrome as well. The first childhood dynamic described really sounded like a Golden Child/Scapegoat dynamic. The Scapegoat's successes can never match the Golden Child's failures. The second sounds like parentification, where the child feels responsible for the parent's feelings, instead of the other way around. Source: I've encountered both in my family.

I dislike things I am not good at. For instance, in grade school I was horrible at French. Therefore, I did not like languages. At the time I would not have considered myself incompetent or lacking, but that would be a fair assessment in a professional setting. As a male, I'd say things are mostly I can do that or I cannot do that. In the case of things I can do, it is less the case of am I an imposter and more a case of how good am I at this? Unless the thing is ranked and I'm somewhere in the rankings, if I've been doing something for a long time and can do things my peers cannot, then I'm curious if I could succeed at the thing where more people have high levels of skill in that thing. SQL queries are that for me. I've done that for a long time, I can write some good queries. Could I work for big tech, handle the pressure, and understand what my peers were doing? I have no idea. But, if I tried, it would be a matter of where do I fit in this group of people rather than I do not fit in here. If I thought I didn't fit, then I would not try to belong. I upload videos to YouTube to keep out of the BBS leech category. I figure I watch many videos, so I should at least put some up too.

All of my high-achieving friends have imposter syndrome and the rest of my friends just have regular old social anxiety. Anecdotal, yes. But my understanding of imposter syndrome (and social anxiety, in a way) has been shaped in part by a number of my therapists describing it to me as “malignant motivation” - a motivational schema that, unchecked, can become self-defeating.

I have interpersonal impostor syndrome ("these people are just hanging with me to be nice"), but no one calls it that, they call it self-esteem issues or social anxiety instead. No worries, I'm getting better. What I love about your videos is how well you tell stories. Someone else mentioned Scott Manley, and I think that's a good comparison. Your videos sound casual, but they have a really strong narrative arc.

For some reason I just haven’t been able to get the Patreon video to play, so I listened to the Not Aliens podcast instead. It seemed like it was the host talking rapidly for an hour with Dr. C getting a chance to speak for maybe 3 minutes in total. I enjoyed those 3 minutes, but still. When I realised the host wasn’t going to stop monologuing I gave up at about the 50 minute mark. I suppose if you’re the host you can do what you want, but what a missed opportunity. I would say don’t invite someone so interesting on your show and then not invite them to speak.

I posted this under the video poll, but here was when I felt kinda not quite imposter syndrome but still out of my depth doing something I am very competent in doing. Alan Bean the NASA moonwalker from Apollo 12 came to do a talk where I work. Despite doing it a hundred times, I remember feeling so awkward and out of depth just setting up for his speech, simply because of who he was. I did the cameras and was on stage behind the curtain filming, and I just felt so dumb and incompetent even though it went great. I still like to say I did technical support for a NASA astronaut.

I got my PhD in Astronomy in 1981 so my experience was contemporaneous with that 1978 paper. The research I published as a graduate student was well thought of, but once I was a postdoc I felt like I didn't have what it took to compete for funding and jobs with my peers. I don't know if that was the "imposter syndrome" or just my personality, but it had the same effect. I was out of academia by 1985 and felt tremendous relief at not feeling like a failure every day. There was a female grad student who started the same year as I did, 1976, and she apparently wasn't doing very well with the course work. Her advisor allegedly told her that "you can get married and have babies" and therefore she shouldn't be taking a position from a male grad student. She left and got a pretty good technical job at a top astronomical institution, and completed her PhD program gradually while she was working there.

So glad to hear that my manliness keeps me safe and warm from imposter syndrome ... really helps me deal with all my imposter syndrome symptoms that are obviously something else entirely.

That Andrew Collier must be feeling really insecure about his YouTube not taking off

Fantastic video. You have a stingingly awesome sense of humor and I've enjoyed all your content. It takes guts to be open and share introspection in a public setting like this, and it reminded me that as much as we all fear judgment in sharing our personal thoughts/feelings/experiences, people actually tend to enjoy and appreciate hearing and connecting with them, it's endearing. I'm so glad I found your channel and content at the beginning of the year. I started following your videos because I love science, but I've also really come to enjoy hearing your insights and opinions on the not-so-pure-sciencey topics. YouTube/social media can be so insanely (and unnecessarily) aggressive/toxic/cruel, so mega kudos to you for putting yourself out there. I've always loved space, physics, and science but didn't make a career out of it. It sounds juvenile, but when I see a new video from you or Scott Manley, it brings me genuine kid-like "I can hear the ice cream truck coming!" joy.

FWIW you've become a canonical youtuber in several groups of friends and online communities I'm on over the last few months. Someone will link one of your videos in a group text and someone else will reply "oh she's great". That's maybe a part of the iceberg you don't see.

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absolute banger

There's a guy I work with (I'm a software developer) who's always saying how smart I am because I'll come up with a good solution to a problem, or remember some obscure computer fact. I know that I am, in fact, smart, and very good at my job, but I always think he's actually making fun of me. Also, as an AMAB male-presenting person, I usually feel like an impostor when I'm in a group of guys because I may look like them, but I am not like them.

You're just awesome. I've not seen a video, from you, I didn't find entertaining. Not saying I agree with everything, but you make me think about stuff. Keep up the good work.

I've only just now started university and it's the first time i've had to actually compete for an academic position, so i haven't reaaally dealt with imoster syndrome yet? I do feel like i self-sabotage in social situations and it feels very similar to what people describe as imposter syndrome, hard to say. I'll keep some of your tips in mind tho, they seem applicable for dealing with other similar issues too. Also, i'd love to see more casual topics beside the sciency content!

I’ve certainly suffered from it … but have also tended to underestimate my ability and accomplishments. I was a first-generation graduate student, like you, the first Treat to graduate high school that we knew of. Then I was the first in our extended family, the first person we knew at all, to get a PhD (mathematics/operations research). Your video on the subject was a revelation. If I’d understood what I was going through, decades ago, many things might have been SO different.

I feel slight imposter syndrome as a viewer of your videos. I have no background in actual science. I don't understand half of your videos. Science videos on YouTube is just a thing I enjoy listening every day. Am I wasting my time? Should I listen to something more down to earth? Why am I paying money for this subscription if I don't belong to target community? Fortunately I don't feel this way often. Your videos are the best, cheers!

Isaac Asimov once bumped into Kurt Vonnegut at a convention. Vonnegut said "How does it feel to know everything?" Asimov replied, "I only know how it feels to have the *reputation* of knowing everything: uncomfortable."

"Would the Binding of Isaac video have popped off if I had just been knitting instead?" Probably not without a POV cam so we can see you dropping stitches. 😅 Also, a big "yikes!" about what's in the paper about men having impostor syndrome. As another software developer, I've struggled with it a fair bit over the past couple decades. Though now that I'm in my 40s I'm probably more likely to wonder if I'm just getting old. 🤔😢

Yes please for the video topics of numerical recipes and “what is a strategy?” Also, your conversational style is great. It makes me wish I had been a better teacher when I was in graduate school! 🙂

Argh! Do men have reverse imposter syndrome (are imposters but do not know/do know but don't say)? Absolutely. And if you doubt me, I have an econ Ph.D.; we're the poster children for reverse imposterism.

Do men have imposter syndrome? Yes, but I think less often than I think women do.

White, cis-het, neurotypical men are so often the default for being labeled competent/smart/reliable/accomplished, I often feel that their imposter syndrome can approach the label of being well-deserved. In my personal experience, I find that anyone outside of [especially] the cis men sub-category have often needed to work so hard to be anywhere near as valued by others and can/do often have an absurd level of imposter syndrome. It took over ten years into our relationship for my wife to realize that yes, she is "as smart" as me (though we each have our strengths). This is despite her having earned her degree years before me (she's a year and a half younger), becoming very well-respected where she works, enabling us to live off her one-job income while I go to school full-time. She went to a much more difficult university and graduated with a 3.8 overall, 4.0 major. She got straight A's in the IB program in high school. She's magic with Excel. It's mostly thanks to her that we were able to buy our house (my retail jobs paid next to nothing) 2 years ago in our late 20s. Despite all this, she feels unaccomplished and still defaults to "We're both smart but Zak is the smarter one" which is just not true.

Yes, we can all have imposter syndrome! I had to explain to my kids years ago that this is one of the delightful traits that they inherited from both parents! Hooray for Mom and Dad! 🙂

Men 100% have imposter syndrome. Ask any dev.

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