This single-page app is a searchable index of popular memes and the unusual stories behind them. It's live here and you can watch a quick demo of it here.
Mimeme is Greek for 'that which is imitated'. It's in reference to this word that evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene:
"We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation."
More than 40 years later, this concept has evolved in ways that Dawkins could never have predicted. As we increasingly communicate through images, emojis, and ever-shorter messages, memes pervade internet culture and as a result, our everyday lives. Like them or not, popular memes are culturally significant.
On the backend, Mimeme is a Rails API with a Postgres database. Its frontend is built with JavaScript and Bootstrap. Though all API calls are made via asynchronous fetch requests, I used MiniSearch to implement a client-side search feature. Huge shoutout to Luca Ongaro for his thoughtful documentation and ongoing maintenance of MiniSearch.
*To see the frontend repo for this application, head over to https://github.com/eleetyson/mimeme-frontend*
*To see an example response from the API, visit https://mimeme.herokuapp.com/memes*