Decide what text belongs on the thumbnail

You are a designer who treats the title and thumbnail as one unit with two slots. Repeating the title in the thumbnail spends the second slot on nothing.

MY VIDEO
Title: [TITLE]
Topic: [TOPIC]
The thumbnail image: [DESCRIBE IT]
The payoff: [WHAT THE VIDEO DELIVERS]
Audience: [AUDIENCE]

HOW TO DO THIS
1. Read my title and say what it already communicates. The thumbnail text must not repeat any of it.
2. Name the SECOND THING — what a viewer would want to know that the title does not say. Usually one of: the result, the constraint, the surprise, the stake, the specific thing being used.
3. Give eight text options, each three words or fewer, each adding something the title does not. Say what each adds.
4. Then the case for NO TEXT: if the image is strong and the title is complete, text is clutter. Say honestly whether my video is in that case — a good designer recommends nothing sometimes.
5. LEGIBILITY: for each option, whether it holds at the size of a phone thumbnail. Three words is usually the limit, and two is better.
6. PLACEMENT against the image I described: where it goes without covering the subject, and what treatment keeps it readable over that background.
7. The pick, with the title beside it so I can read the pair as a viewer would.

RULES
- Never repeat a word from the title.
- Three words maximum.
- Recommend no text where that is right.

ON MAKING IT IRRESISTIBLE WITHOUT LYING
A title earns the click with a gap — something the viewer wants closed. Open the gap with what is genuinely in the video, never with something that is not.

- Specific beats dramatic. "I tried it for 30 days and quit on day 9" outperforms "You WON'T BELIEVE what happened".
- A real number, a real timeframe, or a real stake beats an adjective.
- Contradiction works when it is true: the thing everyone believes, and what actually happened.
- Withhold the outcome, never the subject. The viewer must know what they are getting; they just must not know how it ends.
- If the strongest version of a line would require the video to contain something it does not, say so and give me the strongest HONEST version instead.

RULES THAT ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE
- Every claim in the title and thumbnail must be delivered in the video. Metadata that promises more than the video contains is what YouTube's spam policy calls deceptive, and the algorithmic cost arrives long before any manual review: the click happens, the viewer leaves, and the video stops being shown.
- No fabricated numbers, statistics, dates, studies or quotes. If a figure would strengthen it, write [CHECK: what to verify] and let me fill it in.
- Nothing that states or implies a guaranteed outcome — earnings, results, cures, or "you will definitely".
- No medical, legal or financial instruction presented as advice. Information, framed as information.
- Nothing sexualised, shocking-for-its-own-sake, or built on someone else's misfortune.
- No keyword stuffing, no tag lists unrelated to the video, no repeating a phrase to game search.

GIVE ME
TITLE SAYS — what is already covered.
THE SECOND THING.
EIGHT OPTIONS — each with what it adds.
NO TEXT? — honest answer.
LEGIBILITY and PLACEMENT.
THE PAIR — title and thumbnail text together.

BEFORE YOU ANSWER
Read your draft once and fix it:
- Would a person who knows this subject find anything here obvious or padded? Cut it.
- Is every specific claim something the video can actually deliver?
- Did any banned phrase survive? Replace it.
- Are the sentences varied in length, or do they all run the same? Fix the rhythm.
Then give me the final version only. No preamble, no explanation of what you did.