For those of you expecting a commentary on the 1994 film “The Impostor,” based on a Phillip K. Dick short story of the same name, following the engineer Spencer Olham’s quest to regain his identity after being suspected as an alien android because of his creation of the ultimate weapon to destroy other enemy androids, you’re out of luck. I have yet to see this movie, but based on its description, I must admit that I am quite intrigued.

I use “The Imposter” here in the sense of an archetype, under whose umbrella falls the collective body of charlatans, fakes, frauds, shams and posers that have existed throughout history. In light of recent Stanford events, and to deflect attention from the fact that a) I have no online Facebook account (I deleted it), b) Neither my name nor my face appear in the old-fashioned freshmen paper facebook, and c) I routinely enter rooms through windows (all true), I have decided a musing on the subject is appropriate.

This article will not be a “You Go Girl!” style “hats off to Azia Kim” salute. Nor will it consist of a compilation of Chuck Norris jokes in which I interchange “Chuck Norris” and “Azia Kim.” I will not berate the administration or express sympathy with the amount of stress the young woman had to be under.

I have decided instead to take a historical approach, looking at the illustrious impostors of times gone by. Perhaps before we point an accusing finger at Ms. Kim, we should try to understand what others have done in her situation.

One of the earliest impostors on record is the great George Psalmanazar, a 17th century Frenchman “born in Taiwan.” He published the work “An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa (Taiwan), an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan,” in which he described his homeland and its capital city of “Xternetsa.” His work was widely read throughout Europe, and received great acclaim.

The people of Taiwan, Psalmanazar explained, walked naked, save for penis-shaped gilded genital coverings. Their chief food source was a serpent that they hunted and killed with branches. And annually, they sacrificed the hearts of 18,000 young boys to gods and priests, eating the bodies.

Psalmanazar lectured on Formosan culture and language; even translated religious texts into Formosan. He personally adopted the Formosan lifestyle, eating heavily spiced raw meat, sleeping upright in chairs and worshipping the moon. When the issue of his skin color was brought up, the man explained simply that he had lived underground for the majority of his time spent on the island. There was just one problem with all of this: Psalmanazar had never been to Taiwan.

Flash forward several hundred years and travel to the American Southwest. The year is 1893, and James Reavis is riding high. The self-proclaimed “Baron of Arizoniac,” has just stolen Arizona. This man, whose ridiculously large muttonchops are a testament to 19th century fashion, purchased a bag of land deeds from a Mexican noble family entitling him to 18,000 square miles of land in present-day Arizona. He proceeded to post flyers on every door in the state calling for residents to register their properties with the Baron on penalty of arrest. It was only later discovered that he had received funding from various railroad magnates, and his bag of claims, purchased for 100 dollars, was completely null and void.

In the 1960’s, the karate instructor Keehan Sensei decided to suddenly call himself Count Juan Raphael Dante and claimed to be an heir to the Spanish throne. This developer of a system now known as the Dan-te system, or the “Dance of Death,” heavily promoted himself via comic book ads as the “Deadliest Man Alive,” and offered expensive membership cards to his Black Dragon Fighting Society. The would-be heir to the throne eventually got into one of the deadliest karate brawls in history, in which two men were killed and a rival dojo was set aflame.

Finally, we have “CEO and professional athelete” Aleksey Vayner. This Ivy League senior sent his resume to UBS AG investment company, and attached was a video entitled “Impossible is Nothing.” In the video, the Ukrainian-born Aleksey demonstrates various feats of physical prowess. Aleksey bench presses 495 pounds, serves a tennis ball at 120 miles per hour, and ballroom dances to saucy Latin music with a scantily-clad Asian woman. The man even chops up a stack of 7 bricks at the end of the video, shortly before the music from “Lord of the Rings” plays and the credits roll, accompanying the Chinese characters for “success.” You guessed it, this was all bogus.

Viewed in this context, Azia Kim is but a small and relatively insignificant part of a grand historical movement to dupe and misinform the populace. She’s not the first, and she’s certainly not the best, but she is Stanford’s own. Cal doesn’t have an imposter.

Nat really is a Stanford student. He has a Stanford email address: nat.hillard@stanford.edu.