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most of you have probably heard already about the horrific event that happened in russia, where a youtube streamer killed his allegedly pregnant girlfriend by keeping her out in the freezing cold for hours https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9019171/Russian-YouTuber-faces-15-years-prison-pregnant-girlfriend-dies-livestream-stunt.html
it made me really sad, especially after reading about the deceased, valya, or valentina. she’s from my home region of krasnodar, raised by her single mom. she was in different model agencies growing up (used to be being exploited). when her mom died, she never overcame the trauma
valya, 28, moved to moscow, got involved with stas reeflay, 30, became addicted to bath salts through his ex, who also was the drug supplier, as i understand, and valya’s pimp, although her severe addiction made it hard for valya to do sex work.
one of the most devastating discoveries out of all of that is that apparently there are websites where you can order and rate your sex worker as if humans were meals ordered off of seamless. a lot of reviews of valya show she would show up to her clients high out of her mind
stas reefley is just one of the growing number of youtube streamers who do cruel things in exchange for donations. stas abused himself, girls, including valya, others, including a man with a severe drinking problem named valentin, as well as a disabled man named anatoly.
there are videos online of stas beating people, including women (he even broke a girl’s nose once) and the disabled man, who at one point has to have a doctor called to him. it doesn’t seem like youtube ever seriously blocked him or prevented him from streaming
there were also various different things like people being doused in pepper spray, sitting on a bottle, various kinds of verbal abuse, and the disabled man anatoly had the tattoo with donors’ names tattooed on his body
this article, in russian, details russia’s so-called “trash stream” community quite well, it’s centered around valentin, the man with an alcohol problem, who had been abused by many. stas appears in the article, too https://batenka.ru/unity/thrash-streams/
i am absolutely devastated that all of that exists. and i’m sorry to make it about my favorite subject, but you know what: this would not exist under socialism. all the evils in this storyline are caused by capitalism
capitalism makes it possible to buy a human, to buy their body, to buy their dignity, agency, to abuse them in ways that are not morally acceptable because under capitalism we as a society pretend that money buys consent.
capitalism is what created contemporary slavery and one of its main goals today is to make this slavery moral. we all participate in it in one way or another, not even aware most of the times.
a ton of people discussing valya’s death say that she wasn’t forced to stay or obey, that she was acting out of free will, that she must have liked abuse, drugs, attention, that she could have said no: all the usual victimblaming.
but just like we couldn’t say no when soviet union was being dismantled piece by piece in the 80s-90s, she couldn’t say no because she was at the center of manipulation, abuse and affected by stas’s power
power is the decisive attribute of any kind of relationship under capitalism, and capitalism in turn allows for tools that grant power to those willing to procure it
if she had been born in the soviet union instead of post-soviet russia, valya would grow up as a little octoberist, then a pioneer, then would probably join komsomol, instead of getting pimped to rich guys through modelling agencies as a kid
she would have various life skills and a circle of support that would not allow her to fall in with an abuser. of course, there was abuse in the soviet union, too, but people talked & got involved (i know from personal experience)
and if stas was doing something like that under socialism, people, who realize the need for communal action, would report him long ago, and he would face repercussions for his previous abuse, of valya, valentin, anatoly & others, only valya would stay alive
given how resonant this story has become there’ll probably be a crackdown on those kinds of streamers, but there isn’t much to do with the fact that among other post-soviet freedoms there is now the freedom to pay to see abuse
and under socialism, being nationalized, youtube and other websites would care more about protecting the ordinary people from harm than protecting the vested interests of the powerful from revelations of corruption and wrongdoing
