By communicating about unexpected events, individuals advertise their ability to detect abnormal states of affairs. Daily narratives that fill up about one third of human conversation time are the far and continuing consequence of the general insecurity created by the easy-killing context in which our species has been thrown into by the advent of lethal weapon use. Since then, information has replaced muscle as the main criterion for selecting friends. Computer simulations show that this situation leads to a stable state in which costly information displays evolve in conjunction with social networking.