Myspace and predators!

"There's no way to stop a determined predator. There's no way to stop a determined victim" (119). By stating this, Kevin Alexander starts his essay about cyber-predators "MySpace Not Responsible for Predators". In this essay the author narrates the story about a young girl who was abused sexually by a 19 year old who pretended to be of less age, contacting his victim via MySpace and convincing the 14 year old to meet personally. The victim's family proceeded to file a law suit against MySpace stating that "MySpace is more concerned with making money than protecting children online" (119). According to the mother, the website wasn't efficient enough to provide a safe environment for her daughter, leaving sex offenders and predators with an unlimited range of options to attack naive kids. Alexander explains that even though this is a serious tragedy, it is not under MySpace responsibility that these situations are currently occurring. It is important to remind the reader that in today's internet web there are hundreds of social networks such as Facebook and Hi5, not just MySpace. The author remarks in the last paragraphs that this episode instead of being the social network's fault, in this case MySpace, it is the parents lack of responsibility. It was the mother's responsibility to explain to her kids the dangers of social networking with strangers. Also, a 14 year old girl is able to realize the risks of having conversations with strangers, and above all she ignored the danger of meeting someone she didn't know.
MySpace has forseen these kind of situations, and the company is doing everything on their hands to prevent them. By this, every user has to agree to some terms and conditions which include that "Myspace.com is not resposible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any user of the Myspace.com services" (120).
I agree with Alexander's point that there's is no way to stop a sex predator from contacting victims, but there are definitely ways to avoid being the victim.




Alexander, Kevin. "Myspace: Not Responsible for Predators." New York: Morrow, 1985. Rpt. in Elements of Arguments: A Test and Reader. Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2009. 119-120. 

Here's the rest of your fur coat!

 Analysis: This controversial PETA advertisement is directly aimed to people that wear fur. PETA has been fighting for years against animal abuse and cruelty. This image a woman is holding a skinned animal and the sentence " Here's the rest of your fur coat" to one side. There's is no background on the picture, making the main idea of the image be the center of all attention. This image represents the suffering of animals, the ones that are skinned alive and killed slowly. This gruesome image will have an effect on people wearing fur, who could think of fur as just another type of fabric, rather than the skin of a dead animal, an animal who suffered and died to dress and make someone look "fancy".




The Claim: "Here's the rest of your coat fur". A message clearly directed to all people wearing animal fur as clothes. Making the audience realize that a fur coat is actually the skin of a dead animal, instead of just another fabric. This image is encouraging people to stop wearing fur, and mainly to stop animal cruelty and abuse.

The Support: The logo of the company at the bottom of the image creates the main support for the cause. PETA is known for fighting against animal abuse and by putting the logo there, the audience immediately connects  this organization with what the image is about. Also, the support of celebrities and public figures make the message so much more attractive to people. PETA has been supported by many celebrities throughout the years, making this organization bigger and powerful.

The Warrant: The warrant of this image is the skinned, dead animal being "delivered" to someone that's wearing fur. Even though this image is very direct, it is not only fighting against the wearing of animal fur, but also animal abuse in general since the animal in the picture was abused in order to get the fur from it.

More examples of PETA advertisement..

Fashion victim! leather is dead skin- think about it.













If you wouldn't wear your dog.... Please don't wear any fur.

A little bit about me :)

Well, first of all. My name is Maria Eugenia Briceno Papapietro AKA Mao ( since my name is so long and difficult to pronounce). I am half Venezuelan and half Italian, born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. My whole life used to revolve around dancing, since 3 years old I started dancing ballet, flamenco, jazz, tap dancing, and pretty much any type of dancing that my mom could sign me up for. I studied for 9 years in a catholic school and when I was 14 my parents decided to move out of the country and come to The United States. This experience was the most difficult situation i've been put it, coming to a whole new country, new culture and above all new people talking in a language that sounded like CHINESE to me!! Little by little I managed to learn the language and to socialize with this new culture. I decided t join the dance team in high school, and colorguard for marching band. This gave me the opportunity to meet amazing people and to have a great experience doing what I love the most, performing.
After hard work in high school I managed to receive an academic scholarship to  FGCU full ride for 4 years. I'm majoring in Biology, planning to go to medical school and specialize to be an obstetrician, and deliver babies...
I hope this semester will be a successful one!!!!!

<3, Mao.

Here's a little bit about my Marching Band perfoming Thriller by Michael Jackson.