Email is notoriously stubborn. Despite decades of innovation across the tech landscape, core email protocols like SMTP and IMAP have remained largely unchanged since the 1980s. Enter SHARP (Self-Hosted Address Routing Protocol) – a tongue-in-cheek experiment by developer “Outpoot” (also known as FaceDev) that attempts to drag email kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
SHARP isn’t your typical dry, developer-only protocol. It’s an experimental, humorous, and refreshingly self-aware project that pokes fun at modern communication while genuinely exploring new possibilities. The protocol’s core features are deliberately whimsical, maybe silly, yet surprisingly functional:
Key Features
JSON-based Communication: SHARP simplifies the legacy email stack by using JSON over TCP, trading complex MIME headers and archaic formatting for clean, developer-friendly messages.
Built-in Anti-Spam with Hashcash: To deter spam, SHARP requires computational work from senders, literally making spammers pay with CPU cycles before their messages can be delivered.
IQ-based Vocabulary Limiter: Perhaps the most audacious feature, SHARP playfully restricts users’ vocabulary complexity based on an IQ test taken during signup, offering a humorous critique of the often impenetrable jargon that plagues traditional email systems.
Beyond the Humor
Beneath its satirical exterior, SHARP includes genuinely practical innovations: message expiration timers, one-time-view “bomb” emails that self-destruct after reading, and a fully responsive, themeable inbox interface. These features demonstrate that the project isn’t just comedy – it’s legitimate exploration of what email could become.
Try It Yourself
Curious to experience this unconventional take on email? You can test-drive SHARP at the public instance twoblade.com, or dive deeper by hosting your own instance using the open-source project available on GitHub.
The Bigger Picture
Will SHARP overthrow SMTP and revolutionise email forever? Certainly not. But could it spark meaningful conversations about the future of digital communication? Absolutely.
Sometimes impactful innovation comes wrapped in humor and irreverence. While SHARP may not be “true email” in the traditional sense and would face obvious scalability challenges, what it succeeds brilliantly it is acting as a catalyst for fresh thinking about communication protocols we’ve long taken for granted.
Learn More: Discover the full story behind SHARP in FaceDev’s entertaining and technically insightful YouTube video: “I made my own Email Protocol” (Note: Contains mature language). In this video, the creator walks through SHARP’s development, combining genuine software engineering insights with plenty of laughs along the way.
