THE VIEW
A MAN OF MANY TALENTS!
With over 7.5 million followers across his channels, Jim Chapman is a social media phenomenon, He is also a best- selling author, illustrator, model, presenter and online creator. Jim and his family have recently moved to a beautiful Georgian house in the Cotswolds which he is completely renovating himself. He talks to Lynda Clark about his interesting career, his new home and has some excellent advice for first time buyers
Photos: Kieron Webb
I was slightly nervous about chatting with Jim because he is such a big name on social media, but I really need not have worried as he is one of the most charming, eloquent and fascinating people I have met for a long time. Jim had a difficult but loving childhood growing up with his two older sisters and twin brother in Norwich. He said, “I was the only person in my family to go to university and graduated from the University of East Anglia with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. I then decided to go on and do my Masters but had to work full-time to pay for it, so it was tough. I did my first year and then I discovered social media! “I was enthralled by it and initially thought it was just a craze and wouldn’t last. I started putting up posts on YouTube on men’s fashion and grooming and I had a ball! At that time not many people were into YouTube but it just grew and grew. I then progressed to putting up stories and updates on what I was up to. So, I was so busy and having fun I didn’t complete my Masters but it’s very unusual for me to quit anything as I always follow everything through. I was there from the dawn of YouTube and it’s now been 17 years and it’s been quite a journey. “I used to make loads of contents for YouTube on just about anything. But that’s not really fun any
more and I only post when I have a real story which catches people’s attention. Nowadays it's mostly Instagram that I use. It is friendly, quick and very digestible. I like that the posts are only around 15 seconds and not 15 minutes as people don’t generally have the time to watch. I am putting up a lot of stories about the renovation of my new house and I know from the views I get that this has really caught people’s imagination.” Jim has also done some presenting and writing and released his first book, 147 Things , in 2017. He is currently writing a children’s book which he hopes to illustrate himself and has another idea that he is working on. He bought his first home in Norwich which was a two-up-two-down but he didn’t stay there for long before he moved to London. He lived in various places and he recently sold his house in Southfields, south west London and bought a beautiful Georgian house in the Cotswolds, which he is renovating himself. “With two children to juggle it’s pretty full-on. We went out for lunch for my birthday and the children had such a lovely time with their grandparents it made me think that maybe they were missing out on seeing them on a regular basis. I am pretty impulsive and it had been my decision on the location of where we lived for >>
First Time Buyer August/September 2026 21
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online