The Problem of Prostitutionized Masses: The Collapse of Meaning in the Age of Visibility

If every time you open Instagram, you encounter bodies being circulated, and every time you scroll through TikTok, you see people, consciously or not, turning their own lives into commodities, and if this fills you with anger, you’re not alone. Married or single, women or men; sexuality is increasingly put into circulation, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, and ever more subliminally. This signals the construction of a new social “normal.” And many sense that this norm is heading in the wrong direction. Yet this discomfort rarely turns into collective resistance. Because whenever people try to gather around what they believe is a “right” idea, they usually dissolve into egos and minds already aligned with the status quo.

When I first raised this issue, someone asked me, “So what, are the oppressed working classes prostitutes now?” The question itself shows the limits of the problem. Classical class analysis alone cannot explain today’s exhibition economy. Yes, people are getting poorer, more insecure, more trapped. But that does not automatically explain why intimacy is being voluntarily placed on the market. So what, just because someone is oppressed, must they go live on TikTok? Or because someone lives in a village, is bored, and thinks “no one will see anyway,” should they put their body on a digital stall? These are not extreme examples. These profiles are real.

We have to understand that society is not the sum of minds; it is the sum of conformities. People can think when they are alone, but when they become part of a crowd, they adapt. That is why every platform that addresses the masses works with the same logic: the issue is not being right, but being in circulation. Today, it is not morality but algorithms that decide what is valuable. People are measured not by what they produce, but by how visible they are. Not ideas, but poses. Not meaning, but images circulate. The tragedy of this age is this: People are not selling themselves, but they are being sold to themselves.

What Is Prostitutionization?

What we are calling prostitutionization here is not limited to sexuality. It is the act of turning one’s very existence into exchange value. In Marx’s terms, not only labour but personality, emotion, body, story, and intimacy are now put on the market. The human being is positioned not as a subject, but as a commodity. In Adorno’s sense of the culture industry, these people believe they are expressing themselves, while in fact they are being shaped by the demands of circulation. They do not decide what to share, how to appear, what to hide or expose; algorithms do. There is a feeling of freedom, but no freedom.

Byung-Chul Han’s “performance subject” finds its body here. These individuals are no longer oppressed by an external power but driven by an internal pressure to expose themselves constantly. They are their own executioners. They market themselves because they believe they must, and call that freedom. Prostitutionisation is about honouring visibility. Thought for approval. Identity for followers. Pain for likes. But this is not what everyone does. This is the practice of those who turn their existence into something watchable and consumable. This subject no longer asks, “Who am I?” They ask: “How many are watching me?” And the answer they receive is: If you’re visible, you’re in circulation. If you’re in circulation, you’re valuable. If you’re valuable, you exist. But this is not a subject’s existence, it is a shop-window existence. Here, one does not live; one is displayed. One does not build; one is operated. That is prostitutionization: Not merely selling yourself, but keeping yourself constantly sellable.

The Voluntary Surrender of the Masses

In the past, power disciplined bodies and minds by force. Today, it doesn’t need to. People now police themselves, exploit themselves, and place themselves into circulation. Coercion has given way to voluntary exposure. Propaganda used to flow from above. Now the system doesn’t speak, it makes the masses speak. People are no longer just consumers; they are also producers, distributors, and advertisers. Every individual is a small media apparatus. Every profile is a micro-agency. In this new order, people don’t produce ideas; they produce themselves. They don’t share their lives, but the image of their lives.

What is placed on the market is no longer just labour. The inner world is commodified: Trauma becomes content. Loneliness becomes a post. Anger becomes engagement. The body becomes a display. Everything is measured. Everything becomes numbers. How many likes? How many views? How many followers? People believe they are unique while becoming standardised. This is no longer a discipline society, but a performance society. People surrender not because they are forced, but because they believe they are “self-realising.” And this surrender is so ordinary, so daily, that no one notices a revolution has happened. But something changes: The intimate becomes banal. The private becomes public. Meaning is sacrificed to circulation.

The Marketing of Emptiness

This system doesn’t teach people to produce something; it teaches them to look like something. The issue is no longer creating content, but being content. The human being ceases to stand behind their own thought and becomes an object formatted for the gaze of others. There is no real production of meaning, but this lack is marketed. The system doesn’t hide emptiness; it polishes it. Depth is replaced by brightness. Inquiry by slogans. Truth by image. People are no longer products to be consumed; they are personalities to be consumed. They optimise themselves endlessly: more visibility, more sharing, more performance. Stopping and staying silent is almost a crime in this system. Emptiness is no longer a problem; it is a strategy. Meaninglessness is legitimate as long as it circulates. There is no truth, but there is a shop window. No worldview, but an aesthetic. No word, but a stage. And everyone on that stage is no longer an actor, but a product.

Conclusion: Rejecting This Order Is Not an Option, It’s a Necessity

There is no neutrality in this age. Either you enter the market, or you reject it. This system doesn’t only exploit bodies; it exploits meaning. It doesn’t only consume humans; it consumes the possibility of being human. What needs to be done is not to produce better content. Not to share more ethically. Not to look more aesthetic. What must be done is this: Refuse to put yourself on the market. Dare to be invisible. Accept being disliked. Exist without approval. The most revolutionary act today is this: Do not present yourself.

Do not optimise yourself. Do not operate yourself. Because the system doesn’t want your obedience, it wants your participation. It doesn’t want your silence; it wants your performance. So real opposition is not shouting, it is withdrawing. Real sabotage is not destroying, it is not taking part. And this is a call: Withdraw yourself from the market. Do not turn your life into a commodity. Do not circulate your intimacy. Do not turn your pain into content. Do not put your identity in a shop window. Because a human being is either in the market… Or they are a subject. There is no third way.