Now because of the rather provocative title I have to inject that there is a lot of nuance that is lost here.

Imitation is not necessarily bad and most certainly not a form of colonisation of a person. Imitation is good in the sense that you can learn from the best. In fact this is what many aspiring artists does, they imitate the masters not necessarily to become them but to learn from them.

I would agree that when the imitation becomes an obsession and you start to derive the majority of your meaning in life from being like someone else it becomes a problem. This is perhaps when you could say that you are colonised intellectually and have an unhealthy obsession.

Being like other people is not bad, it can be a really good thing and offer a security of the group. However the underlying message of being yourself is good. On the contrary you also have to be yourself with other people to find yourself comfortable in your surroundings as well and sometimes that means you have to imitate others to varying degrees.