The Heelys Lore 

I was just thinking this morning that I would love to learn about how Heelys ruined the early 2000s, preferably through a video with a runtime roughly totalling but not exceeding 40 minutes.

Roger might have been burnt out working in psychology, but he was literally set aflame by his passion for heelys. What a real one.

I still remember one of my childhood friends telling me “I see you finally got Heely’s. Too bad they’re not popular anymore.” My aunt had surprised me and my sister with Heely’s since my parents couldn’t afford them, but after that I was too embarrassed to wear them much :/ Kids are so mean sometimes

Heelys were like the Apple Watch of kid’s sneakers in the mid 2000s, if you owned a pair you were considered one of the cool kids at school.

Is it wrong for me, a 23 year old, to want a pair of Heelys this badly?

My elementary school had several inclined hallways…you can imagine the chaos of 2007

Shout out to the random kid from my childhood that thought he would be able to successfully heely through the uneven gravel parking lot of the community soccer fields in my town. He made it about six inches before the loose gravel totally jammed the wheels and sent him face first into the ground. My mom saw the whole thing and immediately decided Heelys were unsafe and as a result never bought them for me.

I can safely say, as an elementary school teacher, that Heelys and their knockoff counterparts are still going strong. I am not sure if they’re “coming back” and I know they’re nowhere near their former popularity from when we were in school, but I still have 2-3 kids a year who have a pair. And nothing’s funnier than watching a kid you have REPEATEDLY told not to use them in school and ESPECIALLY not in your carpeted classroom eat shit as he tries to impress his friends when he thinks you aren’t looking. Don’t worry, he didn’t hurt more than his ego.

I begged my mom for a pair of Heelys and as soon as i got them i became a menace. I would wear them to church and wheel around all the old people to the point that I became the reason they were banned in my church. I keep thinking about getting a pair as an adult just to relive my passion, and I think this video is my sign to do it.

Happy to report I was the Heely kid that caused new rules to be created at my school

Haven’t even watched this yet but right now I’m stage managing a community theater production of the Little Mermaid and our director asked all the underwater folks to wear heelys so this is violently relevant to my life rn

Every time my brother asked for Heelys, my mum would say, “You can have them when you’re 12.” By the time he was 12, he had forgotten about them.

I decided to order a pair of heelys 4 years ago now for my high school graduation in hopes of heelying across the stage to get my diploma, but as someone who was also not allowed to own a pair of heelys growing up, I ran into the exact same learning curve as Ashley. To this day, I do not understand why it's SO HARD. I did walk across the stage to get my diploma in heelys (and they did light up so I had disco feet), but unfortunately, I did WALK across the stage.

how is it that you literally never miss on hitting the niche but totally significant video topics

I vividly remember being in elementary school and the principal going around to every classroom with the tool that Heelys provided to remove the wheels from everyone’s shoes.

living in latinamerica in the 2000s heelys were SO rare and only the kids who traveled abroad had them and everyone was so jealous they were hated

i remember these things flopping HARD after schools and public spaces immediately banned them. my mom got me a pair from dunhams for $10!

i think we as a society definitely need an ashley norton x heelys collab, that would be absolutely iconic.

fun fact: heelys were not the first commercially available stealth skate shoes! there were some pretty cool pop out sandal skates in the late ‘70s that you can still find out there

Sierra Boggess as Ariel in The Little Mermaid the musical was the reason I wanted Heelys in middle school! But my friend broke her arm in a Heelys accident so it was a no-go when I went to ask my parents about it. That Seth Rudetsky video you posted a clip from is something I’m sure I have entirely memorized, my lore with Sierra & The Little Mermaid goes DEEP 🤣

the first time I saw heelys in the late 00s was a girl wearing them at a convenience store rolling around the aisles. she was holding an open can of Pringles, hopped on her heelys, and promptly ate shit immediately, sending the Pringles everywhere. I felt bad but it was very funny

Reading the title of this video brought back repressed anger about my mom deciding Heelys and similar knockoffs were too dangerous for me to own.😑 She was probably right, but I kinda want to buy some shoes with wheels out of spite…

I had heelys as a kid and bought another pair as an adult a few years ago. Besides practicing with the kitchen counters, wear them to a grocery store and push the full size shopping cart around. Then you have 6 wheels instead of 2 to practice and it's a lot easier to balance. I am not coordinated, but this is one of the few things I know how to do.

I am SAT and READY

Can we bring back heelies??? Because I walk a lot and I feel like my life would be faster with them

I owned a pair when I was 9 and I bought a pair last year and still remember how to skate with them 1- see which foot you feel more comfortable putting forward (I do right foot front and left foot back) 2- the foot you put forward should be pointing up, while the back foot should be parallel to the floor 3- hold someone's arm as they pull you 4- train the launching movement while holding on to someone. Launch with the back foot, as they showed in the video 5- once you practice all of this, you can do a little run and get into position to go faster

I would have a heart attack every time the Heelys kid at my junior high would roll right up to the edge of the top of the stairs, then stop and walk down the steps

I was never allowed to have Heelies (for good reason. I am the clumsiest human being to ever exist) but I remember being supremely jealous of the friends that had them.

It’s crazy that every single video of yours is a BANGER

Pro tip: Practice at the grocery store so you can use the cart for balance. Worked for me skidding around the store in my (imaginary) Heelys as a child PS Looking forward to the "Ashley learns to Heely" livestream 🤙

Heelys are still super active on social media - my friend is a brand ambassador with them actually LMFAO

Do I have a very niche but interesting question? Yes. Does Ashley have a video on it? Also yes. Thank you Ashley, the insomnia girlies love you ❤

my brother had a pair of heelys.. i thought they looked cool until i actually tried them on 💀 definitely helps if u know how to rollerblade, ride a bike, etc. beforehand. godspeed on ur epic heely shredding journey 🙏🏽

In 2007, I was in middle school and I had a cheap knock off pair of Heelys. Not only they got quickly banned in my school, but after a few use, the mechanism that pushed the wheel out broke so it was a hazard either way: you could be walking normally when a wheel partially pop out and slip, or trying to wheel on an half out heel that would suddenly break, awkwardly projecting you forward too fast. And that's outside the fact that I was a physically weak tween with shit cardio and no strength in the ankles. Good thing I'm too bendy to ever break any bones 😂

This is what life’s all about. Heely’s deep dives. Thank you for making this I loved it!!!

One of my siblings got Heelys as a birthday gift from their godfather one year. My other sibling and I never had Heelys, and since we couldn't borrow them because shoe size is a thing, the jealousy was real.

I always assumed heelys had been discontinued! Time to make a very irresponsible purchase

I remember everyone having the knockoffs that were less than half the price of Heelys (myself included). Instead of the wheels being a snap-on snap-off mechanic, there was a button on the heel you were supposed to press to pop out the wheels and this button would without fail end up breaking in under a month, making the shoes unusable. After my second pair broke, I decided in conjunction with my parents to just stick to my rollerblades.

When I was a kid I went to Disneyland wearing them and I made it all the way to Toon town before a cast member told me to take the wheels out.

I remember when i was a kid i could NEVER figure out how to even walk in heelies, let alone actually heelie. I'm such a head heel-walker, i would always skid and basically do the splits and it was truly awful. godspeed ashley

In 2007 i went to a tiny private school on a small mountain spread out over several buildings with lots of paved steep hilly space in between. The kids with heelys treated it like an extreme sports arena and somehow the teachers never cared much about the chaos. Surprisingly no one ever got very hurt, despite a lot of the hills ending in gravel or large rock faces. And wow, i was not expected "crawled back into a burning car to get his heelys" to be a part of the story.

i’m so glad that you’re on youtube! your videos have been such a comfort since i first found your channel. the way you present your research is so compelling and at this point i feel like you could make a video on anything and i’d listen. thanks for doing what u do! :-)

my dad wouldn’t buy me heelys until AFTER every single place banned them, so i couldn’t even wear them. still have a scar on my knee from a heelys related fall. still the coolest shoe

There’s just something strangely whimsical about the story of heelys. Like it’s just so strange? A skating family? Weird celebrity endorsements? Lunatic lab and an inventor who likes to disappear off the face of the earth? It’s so weird

You unlocked a core memory talking about these. I wanted a pair so bad that when I was finally allowed to get them… they didn’t have my size. I convinced my grandma (who was raising me) to get me the size that was two sizes too small…. 🤣

omg i'm so excited for this video

I havent even started watching the video but there is no way I could find these kind of topics if it werent for you, you have such a different experience than mine im eager to consume every single one of your videos. Keep it up!

Back in 2002, my buddy thought it was a good idea to try and grind a bench at our school, in the rain, with his Heelys. First time I saw someone break their ankle, and that image has stuck with me ever since. Edit: He must have been using Soaps back then, I believe.

I got heelies a couple of years ago (I was 23/24) and it took me a solid three days of walking around the city shopping (over a few weeks) to get used to them. Start by just lifting your toes to scooch backwards on the wheels, that will give you a feel for the speed/balance of them without them coming out from under you. Also when you're standing still, roll each heel separately also to get used to the sensation. Then go on to pushing the front leg forward and lifting the back toe, without taking the whole foot off the floor. It'll be slow, but you'll move an inch or so more each time until you're confident.

For a minute I thought it said "How Heelys Ruined the 2000s" and you would have made a very powerful enemy on wheels

I saw a kid heely across the grocery store produce aisle about a year before heelys became a 'thing' in my town. For a solid year, I truly believed I hallucinated/ saw a hovering kid and it haunted child me. Also I got a pair for Christmas and wiped out the first ride. Then I became deeply afraid of the heelys.

I begged my mom for Heelys for my birthday for years but she always said they were too expensive. Then she got me a pair when I was in the 7th grade, but they were no longer cool and I never wore them...I can still picture them sitting in the back of my closet...I have held onto this guilt for so long... However, I did get yoyos banned from my elementary school.

Growing up my best friend's brother had Heelys and I remember watching him through the window, absolutely seething with jealousy 😂

My prevailing memory of heelies is the thing that Toby "Tobuscus" Turner would always be wearing in his vlogs and IRL appearances... Please cleanse my memory of this and become the true Heely's icon we deserve.

the history we all NEEDED.

this is some TOP TIER content thank you ashley

When I was a kid, I had some heelys that I wore almost on a daily basis. I used to love going to Disney On Ice shows and my mom bought me a pair so that I could “skate” around in the garage. I even learned how to do a few tricks and performed in a school talent show with that same pair! Sadly, I outgrew them when I went into Junior High and retired from wearing heelys. Maybe one day I’ll buy a new pair and try to relearn my tricks just for fun!

I always wanted a pair, but my mom wouldn't let me 😢 Such a buzz kill. I'm tempted to find an adult sized pair.

I have trauma from visiting the Alcatraz Museum in San Fransisco with my Heelys and the security guard yelled at me and cut the wheels out of my shoes with her knife without talking to my parents first and they were pissed and I was traumatized and I will never go to Alcatraz again. But I will use my Heelys every day.

i never wanted to go to stop & shop more than when i had my heeleys

I got Heelys for my birthday one year. Faked sick to stay home from school the next day and practice. Immediately broke my wrist and never wore them again.

As a grown adult who bought heeleys relatively recently and broke my wrist soon after (at no fault of the heeleys, I was wearing regular skates) it was pretty fun for the short period that I was able to heel around without fear of re-breaking my bones

"I'm not a little baby, I'm a big boy" got an lol.

on the off-chance you see this THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO i LOVE heelys, i wore em as a kid until they wouldn’t fit, and i have them as an adult and use them fairly regularly. i had already watched a few of your vids recently but this is the one that got me to subscribe!

Love that your dog is just taking a big nap in the background

Thank you for the amount of dog cam in this video, and thank you to the doggo too. ❤️

I loved my Heely’s. I probably got them around 2007-2008, I was in elementary school and there was a wheelchair ramp down to the library and I would heely full speed into the wall at the bottom. I’m 26 now, two knee surgeries on one side and a hip surgery later in the past two years, but ya know. I’d heely again.

I would absolutely pay for Ashley Norton themed heeleys

“Lunatic Lab” is the best thing I’ve ever heard

I always wanted heelys however i am extremely unbalanced and accident prone. It took me 5 years to ride a bike and not to brag was a professional normal shoe ice skater. 10 year old me took it very seriously and to my families embarrassment I did indeed cause many casualties mainly to myself and self esteem.

i wanted a pair soooo bad when i was a kid so my mom took me to the mall and when i tried them on i couldn’t do it right and i got so upset i didn’t end up buying them LOL

Honestly, your experience with heelys is the same experience i had age 12, right down to the all-white shoe and leg bumps

If we wore them to school we got iss immediately. There was no point anymore. They were added to the long list of illegal things with pogs, tomagotchi, cell phones, bubblegum, tank tops and shorts.

I remember there was an ad on Disney Channel that talked about heelys in The Little Mermaid and that was a big influence on me

Okay, you are completely correct in thinking the vans-style heelys that you bought are really hard to heely in. If you really want to be able to heely, I recommend buying a pair of those chunky 2000's Osiris looking sneakers, they are so much more supportive feeling and then you don't feel scared to heely in them lol. Sincerely, A fellow heely lover.

Wow props for bringing up the heelys nano, I own one myself and I've never seen anyone talk about it.

2:25 is so funny to me because there actually was a scifi movie from the 70s where the premise was that all wars between countries were solved through rollerderby. It's called Rollerball and you should definitely watch it😂

back in the day, i lived near a heelys store, and was trained by professionals. have always owned a pair since.

I remember when heelys came I was in the third grade and kids in my neighborhood had them good times

I thought about these a few months ago and looked them up and was amazed and shocked to find out they were still around! If they had my size in stock i 100% would have bought them, lol. I had a black and pink pair of knock off ones as a kid and would get regularly yelled at by teachers for heelying down my elementary schools ancient tile floors and the asphalt playground. I outgrew them around the time they were getting banned everywhere but damn did i love those shoes. I still had them for years bc i just couldnt let them go before i eventually got rid of them.

holy shit that csi: miami clip is incredible

i appreciate your captions so much, your videos are so well made 🖤

I never got to own a pair of Heelys. So as an adult I got myself some Slades. Much more expensive but just as dangerous and funnnnnnnn.

i genuinely think if heelys sent PR packages to the right influencers and a couple viral tiktoks people (myself included) would wear them, nostalgia is real

thank you for such an awesome and fun video, i needed something lighthearted and nostalgic today

My school used them like 7 years ago for the mermaids in the little mermaid. looked pretty sick tbh. My brother had and friend had a pair until you basically couldn’t wear them in public in the early 2000s.

When I was younger I loved skateboarding and rollerskating couldn't do either but I loved heeley's so much it was easy to master but Don't skate near water you will sprain your ankle speaking from personal experience

I have the sickest scar on my chin and its sadly eating PAVMENT while on my heelys. I used to be ashamed and hid this fact. Told people I got my scar dirt biking or in a fight. Nut after this video I am no longer ashamed! I WAS A HEELY KID! AND THIS IS MY SCAR!

I worked at a head shop a few years ago…my manager had long, bright blue hair, a septum piercing stretched to an outrageous diameter, a studded belt from hot topic AND….heelys 😎✌🏼 he was one cool dude, definitely the kindest manager I’ve ever had lmao

just wanna say i love the disco ball in the globe-holder thing (around 34:26)

i remember being so excited to get heelys….. and only being able to wear them with the wheels taken out because i was too clumsy to avoid an instant faceplant

This is the kind of content I come to RU-vid for. Thank you ❤️

The dedication to this video and actually buying heelys. We absolutely love to see it

watching this stoned 7 months late unlocked my tragic heelys childhood memory: I was like 10 and desperately wanted heelys but my family didn't have too much money. so, my dad searched for ones to thrift or buy second-hand until finally finding a pair, telling me, and then storing them in the back of our car (for reasons I honestly don't remember). anyways, before [whatever would trigger me receiving the heelys] could occur, somebody shot out the back window of our car, showering the heelys with glass. I was never allowed to wear them (because they were rolling concussion-traps now laced with shards of glass), and could only sadly gaze at them from afar in our garage before my dad buried them out back in the dumpster. thank you to anybody reading lmao and I hope you learn to ride those heelys in honor of all of us who never got the chance [salute emoji]

Holy shit thank you for bringing up Broadway I remember I saw the little mermaid when I was a kid and flounder was rolling around and I BEGGED my mom for heelys after that and got them but I could not find any proof that’s what I saw

Heelys being the product of a midlife crisis makes so much sense. Also i was a Heely-less child, my feet didn’t fit them and i was fully devastated

My only Heely involved Memory is when we walked Out of the Cinema and a Boy before me heeled Out of the room and ended up flying down the stairs lol

when i was in my early teens i was super good at heeleys, then i fell and had a huge wound on my leg and never used them again now i wanna try them again

One of my best memories as a kid tbh was heelying through an airport :’ ) I definitely injured myself on them a lot , especially using them on sidewalks 😅 I vaguely remember that I mostly learned by holding onto something solid and balancing back and forth on the heels and just doing that a lot then eventually pulling myself along but these are old memories for sure

I never had Heelys, but I have a vivid memory of getting Sketchers with retractable wheels for Easter in 2002. My memory is that they were garbage and only worked on super smooth services, which my driveway was not. But I feel like if Sketchers offered to buy Heelys and then made a competitor product that would've been in this video so I'm not questioning if those shoes even existed...