Why does the internet have an “I’m a teapot” error?

Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0) (RFC 2324)

An internet standard for controlling coffee pots. It gave us the error “418 I’m a teapot”.

Masinter, L. · Internet Engineering Task Force (RFC), 1998

Another April Fools’ RFC, this one defines commands like BREW and WHEN (for when to stop adding milk).

Its most famous legacy: if you ask a teapot to brew coffee, it should respond with error 418, “I’m a teapot”. Developers loved it so much that it has survived attempts to remove it from real software.

the verdict

Short and stout, and standards-compliant.