Back in February 2020, the Justin Bieber docuseries Seasons debuted on YouTube. The 10-part series dove deep into the mental stress and addiction struggles of one of the biggest stars on the planet. It also broke the record for the most-viewed premiere in its first week over all YouTube Originals, with nearly 33 million views, and has accumulated north of 430 million views to date.
It was a watershed moment not only for Bieber and YouTube, but also for the purveyor of project, OBB Media founder Michael D. Ratner, whose love of media dates back to his Hebrew school days. “When I created something funny, there was no greater feeling I had than knowing what I did worked. I loved the response to it,” he says.
As his dream of launching a content studio became reality, 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Ratner says he realized the power he had not only to entertain, but to help.
“I started to see a recurring theme in many of the projects I was working with talent and celebrities, that they were being really open about their mental health,” he says. “I started thinking, could I create stories that would make people feel less alone and talk about mental health. It’s something many people are experiencing, and it’s something a new generation was beginning to get more comfortable talking about. I thought, we could not only make compelling content, we could actually do our small part and affect how people feel.”
As he began to grasp the volume of people watching Seasons, Ratner says, “that’s when I was like, Oh, this really does make a difference and it really is helping people and having that compound effect of, if you can result in one more person opening up and feeling less alone and they pass that along, you can really put a dent in this thing.
“I think prior to Seasons—and I’m not saying we pioneered it, but I think we helped—many mental health stories were told as retrospectives, when somebody is older and they’re retired and out of their prime. There was something very special about Justin in his mid 20s, in the height of his potential and his proximity to young people, being so willing to be so open and vulnerable. It’s much easier to relate to someone who’s closer in age, even if they’re a huge global superstar, and that was a great differentiator,” he says.
“You have more to lose, telling it in your prime. If the stigma wins out, then people are like, ‘This person is messed up’ and it starts making you lose fans. Of course mental health shouldn’t have a negative stigma, but that connotation has existed and the willingness to put that aside and trust that people are still going to look at you in an inspirational, aspirational way, want to buy your music, listen to you… it’s really empowering.”
Since then, Ratner’s passion for mental health storytelling has grown, as have his aligned projects. Among them: 2021 docuseries Dancing With the Devil, in which Demi Lovato gets strikingly candid about her near-fatal overdose; and Kids Are Growing Up, his 2024 doc with The Kid Laroi that traverses the music artist’s coming into adulthood while navigating fame, his mental state, his first love, and the death of his mentor, Juice WRLD. Ratner is also a co-producer on Lovato’s current Hulu documentary Child Star.
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