Mardee Shackleford/Instagram, Miley Cyrus/Instagram

Mardee Shackleford is a 21-year-old from Modesto, Calif., who has a few key things in common with Miley Cyrus. They’re both vegan and campaign for animal welfare. They care deeply about feminism and empowering women. They have eclectic and fearless taste in style.

Oh, and then there’s the fact that they bear a shocking resemblance to one another.

A photo posted by Riot Grrrl-vegan-hippie??? (@mardeeraquel) on Mar 13, 2014 at 11:37am PDT

For Mardee, the attention started when she was about 14: right in the thick of Miley’s “Hannah Montana” fame. Everyone was watching the show, and she would get a comment every now and then about how she resembled the Disney star, but it was mostly just an inside joke with her friends.

Then, two years ago, she decided to cut her hair into a pixie ‘do — something she said she had wanted to do for a long time — and the comments and comparisons starting flooding in.

“When I’m in big cities, sometimes it’s crazy,” Mardee told MTV News. “People come up and ask for selfies and autographs. I think a lot of people know it’s just a lookalike and it’s just the fun of getting a picture. I’ll tell them, ‘You know I’m not Miley, right?’ Just to let them know.”

A photo posted by Riot Grrrl-vegan-hippie??? (@mardeeraquel) on Aug 28, 2014 at 7:03pm PDT

She doesn't get many people coming up to her on the street in her hometown (“It’s small and pretty dang obvious Miley wouldn't just be hanging around here”), but she has been bombarded by fans when she travels.

“When I was in Las Vegas about a year ago, we went into this club and as soon as we walked in this girl just started eyeing me. All of a sudden she ran up to me and started crying, saying, ‘Oh my god, I love your music, I think you’re amazing,’” she said. “It was really funny and unexpected. All of Vegas was really fun because there were a ton of foreign people in the clubs who were dancing around me and taking selfies with me.”

In fact, when Mardee went to one of Miley’s Bangerz tour dates in Los Angeles with her sister in 2014, she caught Billy Ray Cyrus’ eye, leaving him flabbergasted at her resemblance to his daughter.

“He saw me and waved me past his security and let my sister and I take a photo with him,” Mardee said. “He actually was literally in tears and I don’t know why. I think he was maybe just overwhelmed. He just told me, ‘You look so much like Miley’ and said it was a great compliment. I didn’t keep my cool at all, I was definitely fangirling.”

A photo posted by Riot Grrrl-vegan-hippie??? (@mardeeraquel) on Feb 24, 2014 at 12:29pm PST

Mardee is quick to remind people that she’s her own individual person — she recently wrote on Instagram, “Miley is great. Just keep in mind that we are two different people, and I’m happy with it that way!” But she also admits that looking like the star — something she compares to “being famous, just on a super, super small scale” — has its perks. She once got passes to cut to the front of the line at Universal Studios, and another time she won $2,500 in a lookalike contest after a Miley concert in Chicago. Moreover, she says posting Miley-inspired photos on her Instagram is a fun way to show off the resemblance and gain more followers.

“I do have a couple of photos on there where I would say I was definitely going for that resemblance,” she said. “But for the most part I’ll just post stuff and [the comparisons] kind of just happen. Sometimes it’s not necessarily meant to be a Miley picture, but I know it does get more people on my page as opposed to just a regular photo of me.”

A photo posted by Riot Grrrl-vegan-hippie??? (@mardeeraquel) on Mar 29, 2015 at 12:02pm PDT

Mardee hasn’t gotten to meet her famous twin yet, and she says she’d love to one day — though she’s slightly worried about Miley getting a sour impression of her.

“I have this fear that… I don’t want her to think that I’m a crazy stalker or something because I can imagine how creepy that would be,” Mardee said. “I just don’t want her to think I’m creepy because I really don’t want to come off that way.”

Until that fateful meeting happens, Mardee has a casual attitude about the attention. When asked if she’d be tempted to copy Miley in the event the singer dyes her hair or changes her look in some drastic way, Mardee made it clear she was going to keep doing her own thang.

“My hair’s actually pretty long now, I’ve been growing it since February,” she said. “But I don’t know… she’s growing her out now too, I think, so I might cut mine off. The timing might be right.”