For this post, I wanted to highlight why technologists have a good sense of humor! If you are familiar with the internet, at some point you would have seen an “HTTP” status code appear on your browser. HTTP stands for “Hyper Text Transport Protocol”. Consider HTTP the way that information is generally transported throughout the internet.
Typically these codes are supposed to tell you the status of your request to access a website. Examples of of these codes are 200 (Success), 301 (Moved), 404 (Not Found), 500 (Internal Server Error), and 503 (Service Unavailable). A general rule of thumb for HTTP status codes is that 400 codes represent client-side errors and 500 errors represent server-side errors. Client-side meaning the user’s browser and server-side meaning the company/person hosting the website.
Now that we got you up to speed on HTTP, you should be in much better shape to understand the humor presented by a 418 (I Am a Teapot) status code. According to Modzilla, the HTTP 418 I'm a teapot status code indicates that the server refuses to brew coffee because it is actually a teapot. Not only is a server not supposed to brew coffee, it is neither a teapot as well. In addition, if a pot is indeed out of coffee the status code should be a 503 as the coffee pouring service is technically “unavailable”. You would be surprised to find out how many people find this funny, but also infuriating as well.
Thankfully, most technologists around the world have a good sense of humor and even reference this status code in some of their services/applications. In terms of the history of this joke, the 418 status code is all part of a larger April Fools joke regarding the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (a HTTP spoof) showcased in 1998 and 2014.