Buying the shortcut is popular
The crowd favors another purchase over using what it already owns.
Read caption text
- The popular option
- New gear
- The ignored option
- Practice
Also called Two Booths · Comforting Lies and Unpleasant Truths · People Queuing at One Booth
One booth has a long queue; the other has no customers. Label the signs to show what people eagerly choose and what they avoid.
The crowd supplies the comparison. The left sign names a popular promise, habit, or shortcut, while the right sign names the less appealing alternative.
You can criticize a preference or make a joke about your own behavior. The image illustrates the caption writer’s point of view; the queue is not evidence that a claim is true.
Write a short label inside each white sign. The left booth is crowded and the right one is empty, so reversing the captions reverses the joke.
Use compact alternatives that a reader can compare immediately. One or two words per sign keeps this narrow lettering space readable.
Original captions to try with this template.
The crowd favors another purchase over using what it already owns.
The attractive preparation phase gets all the attention.
Everyone has something to say before reading the source.