Being indoors makes Tyler, the Creator, irritable, which is why he loves public parks so much. In most cities he visits on tour, the 28-year-old rapper and youth-culture multi-hyphenate will seek one out and make it his second home. This week he's in New York to headline Madison Square Garden—and Fashion Week is winding down—but Tyler would rather spend this serene early-fall evening just kind of loafing around in Rockefeller Park on the West Side of Manhattan than at an after-party or beside a runway. Those are the kinds of social gatherings where he'd be at risk of running into “goob-goobers,” the catchall phrase he uses to describe the sorts of people he dislikes being around, of which there are plenty.

Tyler, the Creator is GQ's Provocateur of the Year. Click here to subscribe to GQ. Tuxedo, $4,995, shirt, $775, and bow tie, $295, by Brunello Cucinelli / Jewelry, and hair pick, his own

It doesn't take much to be disqualified from getting close to Tyler, who has snap judgment down to an elegant, ruthless science. So many things, both superficial and significant, do not sit well with Tyler. Chunky Fila sneakers? Absolutely not allowed in his orbit. If he sees someone wearing these, “We're not on the same page,” he says. Making the kind of music designed to blow up on Triller, a new social media platform that is basically just a dumber version of TikTok—that's gross. Not moisturizing, or having weed breath? Big no-nos. If you are a girl who wears “loose boots,” the kind of boots that jeans can be tucked into, you're in trouble. “The fact that you know where to buy those means we're not here,” he says, making the two-finger eye-contact gesture. “If you wear a size 13 and have on Air Force 1s and skinny jeans, I know we're not here.

“It's a lot,” he continues. “You just gotta be aware of certain shit and just know.” He doesn't like hanging around people who are not “athletically inclined,” even though he hates sports and is standing in a park next to a basketball court, politely declining to shoot hoops with his friends. “Bro, you can't climb over that gate? I can't be around you,” he exclaims, getting angry at an imaginary klutz in his midst. These are not just superficial concerns. The absence of physical grace signals something more sinister. “I hate people who are unaware. I hate fucking goobers. Goob-goobers. Oops, I tripped. Stay the fuck away from me,” he continues. “Everyone around me isn't dumb. I could bring them with me on the zombie-apocalypse team.”

For Tyler, being just the right way—wearing the right things, making the right jokes, liking the right music, avoiding the wrong clichés, and doing all of these things with a sense of freedom and style—is not just a matter of preference. It's this spirit that has made him one of the most unlikely successes in the pop universe. This taste—and this rigorous curation—has elevated him to demigod status for millions of young people inspired by his creative zeal and obsessed with becoming literate in his unpredictable references and jokes. To follow Tyler, an artist who evolved from internet-rap class clown and shock jock to art house pop star with a No. 1 album and a suite of successful extracurriculars, is to feel like you're part of the coolest, most honest, and most entertaining zombie-apocalypse team on the planet.

Of course, once you are on the zombie-apocalypse team, the real work begins. The chief requirement for being in Tyler's world is having a high tolerance for provocation and negging, and gamely contributing to the exchange of free-associative outbursts, jokes, and insults. Needling is a professional sport. If you do happen to be wearing the wrong thing but you can sustain the mockery that goes along with it, you've earned yourself some points. “He uses these kinds of things as filters, and ways to get reactions out of people,” says Lionel Boyce, Tyler's creative partner, whom he met in high school. “It's how he reads a person.” In other words: “It's a defense mechanism, but it's a great thing.”