What is roller-skating?
It may seem that roller-skating has only recently become popular due to new television series, but the truth is that it has been around since the start of the 1880s. It survived for almost a century before being made even more popular in the 1970s when it became popular due to roller discos.
Since then, roller-skating has branched out to include speed skating, figure skating, roller derby, and even roller hockey. Many groups and long-lasting friendships were and are being formed through sites such as Dipply.
Where does it come from?
Roller-skating originated in European theaters, where it gave the impression that the actors were ice-skating on stage. From there onwards, people started using skates as a fun pastime – as technology advanced, so did the quality of the skates, and so it became even easier to pick them up and start skating.
Since the invention of the skate, it has come in and out of fashion and then branched off into other types of skating, as can be seen in the various reports posted about skating on sites such as CNN, which depict Rollerblading cops.
The most popular are quad figure skating, inline skating, and aggressive inline skating (where inline skates are used to perform tricks and stunts). Some sports variants have adopted skates into them and thus created a new sport hybrid – such as roller derby and roller hockey.
On top of all of this, roller-skating has always shared a rich history with marginalized groups such as the black community, immigrant populations, the LGBQ+ community, and women, as it is seen as a sport that is easy to pick up and get into, and that doesn’t require investment.