The French term “égoportrait” ties the “new” photographic practice of the selfie to the genre of self-portraiture in painting. This article will argue that a comparison to the literary practice of autobiography is far more meaningful. Indeed, as practiced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, autobiography is a self-narrative and the reflexivity of its discourse exposes the narration process. In contrast to the self-portrait, which often does not represent the painter in the act of painting, the selfie necessarily shows the gesture of photographic capture. This bold idea of a literary invention of selfies by the founding father of modern autobiography has two advantages: It allows us to better situate this photographic practice within an archeology of self-representation, and it illuminates more precisely how image and text can connect self, experience and representation.