Love knows no boundaries, and sometimes, people express their love in different ways.
And the many ways people can do to show affection, money can blur pretty much everything.
In December 2020, Stanislav Reshetnyak, a Russian streamer who goes by the name Stas Reeflay, made his pink-haired girlfriend, Valentina Grigoryeva, stand outside on their balcony wearing only her underwear.
He did this because he participated in the "trash-streaming" trend, where he as the streamer, is paid a sum of money to inflict verbal or physical violence on someone.
It was hugely popular online in Russia at the time, before the government stepped in.
Stas have been trash streaming for quite a while, and that in some of his previous streams, he would continually abuse his girlfriend, and his other friends.
But this time, things were different.
On December 2, 2020, Stas was with Valentia, and also his friend, Marina.
It all began one night, when Stas and Valentina were sitting by the computer, livestreaming their activities. They were drinking heavily, all while listening to music.
Then, a chat member donated $1,000 and asked Stas to beat up Valentina and lock her outside.
Stas, which was no stranger for abusing Valentina, attempted to being her outside with Marina's help.
But at night with freezing temperature, Valentina argued and tried to convince her boyfriend. Valentina even threatened Stas with a knife.
Unseen during the stream, he reportedly slammed her to the ground, took the knife away, and stripped her down to her underwear.
Stas then allegedly poured water on her, and forced her outside.
That night, the temperature ranged form -3° to -8° Celsius.
After closing the doors and and locking Valentina outside, Stas returned to his seat, and continued streaming.
Valentina could be heard banging on the doors, but Stas didn't budge.
A while later, Stas checked up on her, only to find Valentina laying on the balcony.
He is then seen dragging her in.
In attempts to wake her, he began giving her CPR, and slapped her. He carried her to the couch, placed a blanket over her body, and then called an ambulance.
Stas, in tears, said that Valentina looked pale and wasn't breathing.
But still, Stas continued streaming for the next 45 minutes, drank even more alcohol, and played music.
All, until the paramedics arrived and pronounced Valentina dead.
At first, it was thought that Valentina died because of hypothermia, due to the prolonged exposure to subzero temperatures without adequate clothing.
But later, an autopsy on her body determined that a head injury was the cause of death.
More specifically, medical examination found traumatic craniocerebral trauma and multiple bruises on her body.
In other words, Valentina died because of her head was hit hard.
Stas later admitted to "beating her" on the day of her death, and specifically saying that he made hit her head "several times."
The Moscow region’s Ramensky City Court database said the judge found Reshetnyak guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Stas is then sentenced to six years in a maximum security prison.
After his arrest, his ReeFlay channel was terminated.
What's also disheartening about this case is that, Stas originally showed empathy towards Valentina's death, saying that he didn't mean to kill her, but later, he claimed that she was a prostitute and was on drugs, saying she would have died regardless.
Valentina was allegedly pregnant with Stas's child at the time of her death, though the rumors were later proven false.
Before abusing his girlfriend, which ended her life, Stas had been trash streaming by laying on top of a woman and yelled at her, before beating her up.
Stas also had abused a reportedly homeless person, who was an alcoholic and mentally ill. Stas offered him to stay at his house, but later pranked him following the requests of his followers.
There have been other cases of Stas abusing and pranking the elderly and mentally disabled.
People have began calling out Stas for the abuse, but he would say that the people he abused had voluntarily participated with him and that police didn't need to be involved.
After the death of Valentina, in February 2021, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, expressed his distress over the trash streaming online trend.
"It’s absolutely obvious that we must react. We’ll consider a bill as soon as it is tabled," he added.
"The woman dies on air - and the audience sends donations to the killer. This must stop. Such videos are calmly broadcast to the whole world, meaning something is broken. Until this is fixed, censorship is necessary," said feminist activist Liza Lazerson.