In the past week, Ryan Beatty has gone from Washington, D.C., to New York City to Las Vegas to Los Angeles, back across the country to Detroit and finally, today, back home to Fresno.

It's safe to say that the 17-year-old pop-music-star-in-the-making has a career that's reaching new altitudes.

Two years ago, Beatty was just a kid living in Clovis. He liked to skateboard, had caught some eyes in Children's Musical Theaterworks productions and was gaining momentum online thanks to his YouTube videos covering songs by Bruno Mars and Adele in front of a bunk bed in his house.

Today, he's caught the eye of music industry executives, some of whom are courting him for a record deal and forecasting that he could be music's next big thing. That YouTube channel of his? It has more than 32 million views. His Twitter account? It has almost 300,000 followers.

This all adds up to a grand homecoming for Beatty, who is performing this afternoon on The Big Fresno Fair's Paul Paul Theatre stage with Nickelodeon star Ariana Grande.

Beatty is one of the rare local artists to get such a spot on fair's concert schedule. Rapper Fashawn, another national name, is the only other one in recent memory.

So count this as another achievement for Beatty. If you haven't been paying attention to the kid, he's collecting a lot of them lately.

In recent months: He's been nominated for a Teen Choice Award as an Internet star. His debut EP, "Because of You," reached No. 1 on the iTunes' pop chart. He was chosen by AT&T to appear in a national campaign to stop teen texting-and-driving, which in turn landed him on the front page of YouTube.

One of Beatty's songs was covered by Justin Bieber -- instead of the other way around, like when Ryan started out. His media appearances have included CNN, Showbiz Tonight, Billboard, Seventeen magazine, Teen Vogue and, just this week, MTV.

In what's been dubbed "Beatty-mania," fans have swarmed Ryan -- as a budding teen idol should expect -- at many recent public appearances. Trips to the M&M's store in Times Square and an In-N-Out Burger in Las Vegas both ended with Beatty being escorted away by the fire marshal amid a mob of cheering teen girls.

"It's crazy because places where I never expected I had supporters, people would come out," Beatty says from Washington, where later in the night he would get unexpectedly swarmed by a group of girls, leaving the entire restaurant to look around and wonder, "Who is this kid?"

The answer: He's Ryan Beatty. And with every month that passes, he's becoming more and more of a big deal. Some people like to say he's the next Justin Bieber because of the teen-girl worship and the boyish good looks. Ryan says he'd prefer to be a little less teeny-bopper and more like respected pop stars John Mayer or Jason Mraz.

Either way, his ascension begs another question: "Where are we going to see him next?"

"I remember just doing little things at schools around Clovis," Beatty says. "Now I get to go do things in different cities. You never really know where you're going to be tomorrow. Tomorrow something can totally change. It can go from nothing to everything."

There was a moment of reluctance for Kevin Beatty when his son, a sophomore at Clovis High at the time, came to him, sister in tow, and said, "Please, Dad, please can I do this?"

The Beattys weren't the Hollywood types. Just regular people from Clovis. Ryan is the fifth of six kids for Kevin and his wife, Caleen.

Ryan had wowed crowds in a couple of CMT productions. Mainly, "13," in which he played the leading role and was noted in a Bee review for having "the charisma of a rock star."