I built an Platform that explains cultural references instead of simply translating them

I recently built CultureLens, a web app that explains cultural references using AI.

The product idea is simple:

Translation tells you what words mean.

CultureLens tries to explain why the reference means what it means.

Tech I used:

  • Next.js App Router
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Framer Motion
  • MongoDB
  • Lingo.dev
  • OpenRouter
  • Vercel

The frontend is intentionally minimal — the goal was to make the cultural analysis feel more like a visual reference card than a chatbot conversation.

One part I particularly enjoyed was keeping the landing page lightweight while still giving the app enough semantic structure for search engines.

The project is open source:

GitHub: https://github.com/nikhilagarwal03/CultureLens

Live: https://culturelensai.vercel.app/

I also documented the project here:

https://medium.com/@agarwalnikhil909/the-internet-is-global-but-culture-isnt-building-culturelens-016daef78f68

submitted by /u/agarwalnikhil03
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