"Praxis" Girl — Headshot of smiling young woman with curly dark hair against red background

"Praxis" Girl

2019viral videoclassic

Published October 19, 2026

"Praxis" Girl refers to a June 2019 Twitter parody video by New York comedian Simone Norman, who plays a vocal-fry-heavy "hot mean girl" justifying cocaine use and skinniness as leftist "praxis." The clip got over 1.2 million views within days and sparked a minor leftist Twitter spat because viewers read it as a direct swipe at Red Scare podcast hosts Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nekrasova. By the end of June 2019, "praxis" itself was a running Twitter in-joke, with users asking "who is praxis, what did he do."

political satire memes character archetype memes slang memes culture war memes pseudo intellectual memes

Overview

In the video, Norman delivers lines like "Karl Marx? My daddy" and "I look so fucking skinny today, that's praxis" in a disaffected downtown bohemian voice1. Her character wraps mean-girl cruelty in socialist vocabulary, with bits including "if you're fat, that's capitalist" and a monologue about using her status as a sexual assault survivor to tell other survivors to "get over" their assaults4.

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The joke works on two layers. On the surface, Norman mocks a specific New York downtown-leftist type who weaponizes theory language to defend whatever she wants to do anyway. Underneath, many viewers read specific lines as pointed references to Red Scare, the "nihilist cultural critique" podcast whose hosts had recently defended Louis C.K. and mocked a female comic who objected to Brooklyn's Skankfest festival booking him1.

Praxis is a Marxist concept about putting theory into action rather than only discussing it, which gave Norman's reduction of the term to things like "sucking dick is praxis" its particular bite4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Creator
Simone Norman
Date
2019

On June 24, 2019, Simone Norman, a writer, comedian and former Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaign staffer, posted a roughly minute-long clip to Twitter from the handle @whysimonewhy under the caption "When hot mean girls become public leftists"2. Within days it reached over 1.2 million views, 5,700 retweets and 36,000 likes4.

The specific satire grew out of a separate dispute from the same week. Brooklyn's Skankfest comedy festival had booked a surprise Louis C.K. set, and after comic Kath Barbadoro criticized the booking as a workplace safety issue, Red Scare host Anna Khachiyan replied by calling comedians "self-loathing, mentally ill people" too dysfunctional for real jobs1.

How It Spread

Within hours of the upload, leftist Twitter users were matching Norman's character to Dasha Nekrasova's tweets. User @zei_nabiq replied to the video with a screenshot of a Nekrasova tweet that read "subtweeting is praxis," to which Norman answered with a smile emoticon6. Writer Matt Pearce joked the clip was the week's most important piece of political visual media, outranking the first Democratic primary debates3. jp Brammer deadpanned, "Who is praxis? What did he do?"5.

Khachiyan herself weighed in on June 25, tweeting that she didn't know why "everyone is so mad at the praxis girl she is very cute and pretty and trying something kind of risky in public," while also saying the parody didn't quite land for her7. The Daily Dot covered the row later that week, tying the "Praxis" Girl discourse back to the Skankfest argument and documenting how "praxis" became its own New York Twitter in-joke1.

Timeline

2019-06-24

Simone Norman posts the "When hot mean girls become public leftists" video from @whysimonewhy on Twitter.

2019-06-24

@zei_nabiq replies with a screenshot of a Dasha Nekrasova tweet reading "subtweeting is praxis"; Norman answers with a smile emoticon.

2019-06-25

Red Scare co-host Anna Khachiyan tweets about the "praxis girl," calling her cute but saying the parody didn't land.

2019-06-25

Jp Brammer tweets "Who is praxis? What did he do?" as the term spreads across political Twitter.

2019-06-26

The Daily Dot publishes an explainer connecting the video to the Skankfest/Louis C.K. row.

2019-06-27

Matt Pearce calls the clip the week's most important piece of political visual media.

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How to Use This Meme

Fans typically quote lines from the clip verbatim, or append "is praxis" to any indulgent or petty behavior to joke about dressing up self-interest as leftist action. The common convention is to invoke the term with mock-serious conviction, often paired with a reply screenshot or a sincere political thread.

Frequently Asked Questions