Austin Mahone celebrates his NEW RECORD DEAL (!!!) with his mom and management team. Congrats, Austin!

We've been Austin Mahone fans (MAHONIES UNITE!) since his YouTube beginnings. And while some like to call the 16-year-old sensation "Baby Bieber," we like to call him AN OFFICIAL RECORDING ARTIST. It's true. Austin has recently signed with Chase/Universal Republic! See guys, that's what can happen when you brush shoulders with game changers like Justin Bieber and The Wanted. Oh, and being talented like a boss doesn't hurt either.

We've been MAJORLY devoted to the "11:11" singer's Twitter for the last few months (um, us and more than 1 MILLION other Twitter followers), tracking all of Austin's adventures in stardom. We've seen him chase waterfalls and promote pastries with Carly Rae Jepsen, but nothing makes us more proud than this photo of Austin with his mom (awww!) and his management team celebrating the big announcement with the caption "The BIG NEWS is that I'm officially signed to a record label!!!(: Chase/Universal Republic!!" His exciting announcement has not only induced straight-up tears of joy on our end, but pretty much blew up Twitter with 5,200 retweets within an hour -- NO. BIG. DEAL. And to think that this is only the beginning of Austin's path to WORLD DOMINATION!!! We'll probably be working for him at this time next year.

Photo credit: @AustinMahone