Jamie Perkins

"My kids are my purpose in life. They always come first. "

Q. Thanks for interviewing with us. Tell everyone who you are and what you do.

A. I’m a single father from Melbourne Australia who makes YouTube videos. These days it’s mainly family focused Vlogs but over the years I’ve done everything from cinematic travel content to super car videos.

Q. Tell us a little about your journey and how you got to where you are today?

A. I’ve been consistently making YouTube videos for about 10 years so it’s a long journey and pretty big story to tell. The cool thing is it’s all been documented so the easiest way to express that story is to just tell you to tune in and watch. It was a bit of a right time, right place kind of a thing. Back when I began Vlogging wasn’t really mainstream. It was something I just did on the side for fun while I was trying to become a film maker. But over the years YouTube provided more opportunities than the other film Avenue I was trying to take so it became my full-time job and I’ve never looked back. It’s definitely been a lot of hard work though. At the peak of it, it was the hardest I’d worked in my life and at the time I never really wanted people to see how much work went into it because that would take away from the effortless feel people enjoyed about Vlogs.

Q. How do you define your purpose in life?

A. My kids are my purpose in life. They always come first. I’ve had to sacrifice a lot for them but it’s worth it

Q. Tell us some of the great opportunities and challenges you’ve had as a Youtuber?

A. I’ve been incredibly blessed with too many opportunities to mention but here are some of the highlights. I’ve got to travel to some of the most beautiful places on earth and call it work, I’ve driven most of my dream cars and as a car guy that’s been a dream come true, Thanks to YouTube I was able to be a stay at home dad since the birth of my kids and be much more involved in their lives than I would have been if I’d stuck to the traditional film career route so that was a big blessing and I even once got flown to the Vatican to make a Vlog with The Pope which was pretty cool!

There’s definitely been a lot of challenges though. The biggest one was going through a very public divorce. Divorce is one of the hardest things that a person can go through, especially when there’s kids involved. but to go through it in the public eye with millions of people throwing their two cents in, making up all sorts of horrible lies and rumors about me, it was really hard. I really wanted to just quit making videos for a long time, but this was my career I’d put so much work into building. I also had really big bills mounting up and needed to keep working. So, I sucked it up and kept going. It was a lot harder than people think.

Q. What or who inspires you to be a YouTuber?

A. The youtubers who inspire me the most are the guys who push the limits of creativity. My 2 favorite youtubers are Casey Neistat and Jesse Wellens.

Q. What is one fun fact about yourself?

A. One fun fact about myself. I started my life in the jungle of west Papua which is where my parents met and lived as missionaries. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go back to as I’ve grown up hearing so many amazing stories about my parent’s adventures there.

Q. Are you working on any new events or projects?

A. I’m just trying to spread some positivity. I think there’s so much toxic stuff on social media and I’m trying to somehow sprinkle some positivity into the mix.

Q. Where can the readers follow you?

A. Check me out on YouTube www. youtube.com/jamieperkins and Instagram @jamieperkins.