Oorbee Roy has more than 185,000 followers on TikTok, where she posts videos of herself skateboarding and talking about her love for the sport.Chantal D. Garcia/Supplied
Oorbee Roy used to watch her husband and two kids skate together in their home city of Toronto. She would sit on benches at local skate parks, watching her family have fun. One day, she decided she didn’t want to be on the sidelines any more. “I just didn’t care whether I would be good or whether people would laugh at me or whether I’d get hurt. My desire to have fun with my family became more important than any of my fears.”
So, at age 43, she took a skateboarding lesson. By February 2021, she started posting about her skateboarding journey on TikTok under the name Aunty Skates (a riff on the Aunty trope in South Asian culture). She shared videos of herself – sometimes in a sari – dropping in, trying new tricks and talking about her love for the sport. They went viral, with Ms. Roy’s account amassing over 100,000 followers in four months. Now 50, she has grown a community through her hobby, with the skater offering lessons for adults and, in 2023, launching an annual skate retreat in Costa Rica.
In this series, Reimagining Wealth, we explore the evolving definition of wealth in today’s world. Here, we talk to Ms. Roy about her skateboarding journey and what it’s been like to create a community after 40.
It can be daunting to start new hobbies as an adult. How did it feel the first few times you were able to stand up on a skateboard?
I had never felt something like that before, I was so happy. I fell a lot, [but] it was such an amazing feeling because you’re getting an adrenalin rush. As an adult, I’m taking care of kids, I have a job, I have to be an adult and take care of my house and pay my bills. There aren’t many things you can do in your life that give you that kind of joy, so to feel that, I was immediately hooked. [I thought], I don’t care if I’m going to be any good, but this is my life now.
What were the initial reactions to your skateboarding journey?
My family was incredibly supportive, and that includes my parents. They were so excited for me because they saw how happy I was. Having that kind of support, you really don’t care what other people think. But other people thought I was crazy. At that time, there weren’t a lot of adult women skateboarding. A good way to sum it up [is that] I went to a skate park with my family, and there was a woman there with her kid. She saw me come in with my family, she saw me putting my pads on, and she started pointing and laughing at me. Then she took her phone out because she’s thinking, this is going to be funny.
Ms. Roy says that skateboarding healed her. ‘I wanted to share that with other people.’Supplied
What happened was I went and had fun. At the end of the session hours later she came up to me and said, ‘I just want to apologize to you. I was so ready to laugh at you because I was like, look at this fool trying to skateboard with her family.’ And she said, ‘At some point, sitting here for two, three hours, I realized I was the fool, because I’m not living my best life.’ So anyone who was trying to talk [badly] to me, that’s their own issue and has nothing to do with me.
You started posting under Aunty Skates in 2021. Why did you decide to open up the community to others?
The Aunty is usually the person who’s very judgy and asks why you’re not married yet, [or says] you’ve put on weight and your grey hair is showing; it’s still very prevalent in our culture. I was like, I’m gonna flip the script on Aunty and I’m going to be the Aunty that builds you up and shows you that anything is possible.
When I started to give lessons, [it was because] I wanted more people to skateboard. Finding joy through skateboarding at that time in my life was everything. I wasn’t allowed a bike growing up, so to be an adult and do all these things and find this level of joy – it healed me and helped me live my life better and more effectively. I wanted to share that with other people. That is my definition of success and finding wealth, to be able to bring joy to other people’s lives.
There are still a lot of assumptions around what people can do as they age, and the expectation that you can’t start hobbies or new careers past a certain age. What’s been the most fulfilling part of starting this community at this stage in your life?
Having just done the Costa Rica retreat, it’s been really rewarding seeing friendships and deep, meaningful connections form on these retreats through the shared love of skateboarding. [The participants] are very close, they’re talking all the time and their lives are changed. It feels so good to have facilitated that.
If I could bring it down to one moment, I would say it’s the moment when I see people change from fear to joy on a skateboard. It happens every single time that I teach people; there’s a lot of fear and trepidation when they come in, and the moment when it transfers to joy and excitement and belief in themselves, witnessing that is the single most fulfilling moment for me.
What do you hope other people, especially women, take from your experience with Aunty Skates?
With social media and skating retreats under her belt, Ms. Roy plans to launch a podcast about her adventures.Chantal D. Garcia/Supplied
It’s never too late to live your best life. Go out there and do the thing you always wanted to do. Take a chance on yourself. It might take one year, it might take 20 years to find it, but it’s part of the journey. Discover your own definition of success, because once you do that it’ll bring you joy and happiness and self-fulfilment.
