What is low budget?

There are many ways to refer to things as being less than desirable: crappy, shoddy, janky, broke-ass, crummy, two-bit, shabby, second-rate, etc. The list goes on, of course. But, thanks to Padmini, we have a new way of describing those things that you look at and cringe a little bit, wondering why whoever's job it was to give the final stamp of approval for a product (or something) left their critical thinking skills at home: low budget. Yes, low budget literally means that something has a small amount of funding, which generally is thought to correlate to the quality of the finished product. But, we speak on a more metaphorical level here. When we call something low budget, we're not talking about what its actual budget is. Often there's pretty much no relation between the actual budget of something and how "low budget" it is by our metaphorical standards of low budgetry, by which the only thing that matters is what kind of a budget you think was involved in creating this thing.

I leave you with this example of a delightful logo for Belgaufra, a Belgian waffle stand:



Please note their slogan "probably the best since 1950." I mean, looking at that winky waffle, one doesn't get the sense of such deep humility as their slogan clearly reveals, but I dare say this is why we must not be too hasty to judge, friends. Let me tell you, their marketing efforts definitely got me, if for nothing else, out of the desire to support their obviously excellent sloganeering and translation skills. After having tried their waffles, I can say honestly they are not the best, but they never tried to convince me otherwise! Low budget or high budget?