> people who feel they have "imposter syndrome", but are actually imposters (not just newbies who are still learning), and convince themselves that they aren't after finding out about imposter syndrome.

I could be one of those. But the thing is: a) one can rarely tell. And b) one way to look at imposter syndrome isn't that everyone is actually great while feeling terrible; it's that most people are quietly struggling in a lot of ways, which they see in themselves, but which are hidden from others. We could mostly be (and likely are) mediocre.

So I can be struggling for real, and be a real "impostor", and be doing fine relative to the average population of my peers, all at once. I see many ways I'm struggling with things my peers seem to breeze through, but I might not see the ways I'm succeeding where they're quietly struggling themselves, and vice versa.