Will Storr opens Selfie by tracing concern with self-image and reputation back to deep evolutionary roots, directly challenging the common assumption that obsession with self-presentation is simply a modern product of social media.

Storr's evolutionary argument:

• Reputation management has genuine evolutionary significance — in ancestral small-group environments, social standing directly affected access to resources, mates, and survival, making acute sensitivity to how one is perceived by others a deeply adaptive trait
• This evolved sensitivity to social status and self-presentation didn't disappear with modernity; it persists as a deep psychological tendency that predates any modern technology by many thousands of years
• Historical evidence Storr presents — from ancient Greek concern with honor and reputation to various historical self-improvement movements — demonstrates that intense concern with self-image long predates social media or even modern mass media

This historical and evolutionary grounding sets up the book's core argument: social media didn't create humanity's self-image obsession, but rather provided powerful new amplification mechanisms for a pre-existing, deeply rooted psychological tendency.