Over the course of history, we have been attempting to define our collective selves in terms of what we eat, think, do, see or believe in. Many of these proclamations have been put forwards by thinkers, who necessitated by their environments, attempted to find collective behaviour in societies, which they could treat as defining characteristic of individuals, and society as the sum of those individuals. Following in the footsteps of more contemporary thinkers, my attempt here is to use sociological theories to argue that, for the past few decades, the defining characteristic of individuals and societies, have no longer been determined by individuals’ behaviour, but by how exogenous forces encourage them to behave. My argument is that, with the uptake of neo-liberalism as the main doctrine by which to govern societies, and with the ever-increasing dis-embeddedness of the markets from societies, markets, as exogenous forces to both societies and therefore individuals, have become determinants of who we are as individuals and as societies.

But that is not the only difference between what defines us now, and what used to define us before. Parallel to dis-embeddedness of the markets from societies, eradication or weakening of social norms, values, religions, and frameworks, as part of the emancipatory movement of the Enligtenment and liberalism, or in a social system, which Bauman termed as Liquid Modernity, our defining elements have become much more elusive than before. So, not only are we defined by forces exogenous to us, these forces change shape based on prescriptions of profit maximization strategies. One way this is done, is through exposure and conditioning. Through exposure, markets can create incentives for individuals to engage in certain behaviours, hold certain attitudes or beliefs, or uphold certain values without limitations. In other words, through exposure, markets can encourage people to eat certain types of food, create and watch certain type of content, wear certain type of clothes, seek certain types of health standards, believe in certain type of information, etc.

The object of exposure is