Editor’s Note: Jeff Yang is a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion. He co-hosts the podcast “They Call Us Bruce,” and is co-author of the bestselling book “RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now” and author of “THE GOLDEN SCREEN: The Movies That Made Asian America.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.

There’s a whole cottage industry in pop culture essay writing dedicated to trying to unpack why Taylor Swift is so successful. Is it because she’s the epitome of Americana? Or the ultimate vehicle for “millennial vibes”? Champion of the underdogs? The final girlboss?

In fact, her popularity is anchored in the way she manages to be all of these things, and none of them for very long, pivoting effortlessly from persona to persona and position to position; shedding her skin when necessary (like the “snake” she was famously compared to by Kim Kardashian) to reveal fresh new colors beneath.

Constant reinvention is a given in pop iconhood, as countless prior and peer artists — from Michael Jackson and Madonna to Britney Spears and Justin Bieber — can attest. But no one else does it with the same casual, frictionless aplomb as Swift; her self-shifts don’t come off as acts of extravagant pick-me theater in the mode of Ariana Grande, or explosive artistic statements a la Beyoncé. Instead, they’re more like chord changes; variations in the key of Tay — eyebrow-raising, but never too extreme or off-putting. Which means that throughout all of her evolutions, she has remained accessible, approachable, personable and projectable; a cool hang for........

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