Majora's Mask moon with red eyes next to 'Dawn of The Final Day -24 Hours Remain-' text

Dawn Of The Final Day

2010catchphraseclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Dawn Of The Final Day is a catchphrase pulled from a 2000 in-game notification in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, used online to hype up an imminent event. It is often paired with the game's ominous grinning Moon or the original countdown slide, and functions as a Nintendo 64 flavored version of "brace yourselves".

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Overview

Dawn Of The Final Day is a catchphrase and reaction image lifted straight from a text prompt in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the 2000 Nintendo 64 title where an angry grinning Moon threatens to smash into the land of Termina1. Online, people drop the phrase (or the actual in-game slide reading "Dawn Of / The Final Day / 24 Hours Remain") when something big is about to happen the next day, from a game launch to a real-world doomsday scare3.

The joke works because the source is so specific. The game's countdown text has a very particular block layout, a black background and a doom-laden font, so posting it around midnight before a big event lets a Zelda fan communicate anticipation and dread in one image1. It is also frequently paired with the Majora's Mask Moon, whose bloodshot eyes and gritted teeth do a lot of the emotional work on their own3.

Origin & Background

Platform
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (source) / YouTube and Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2010

Majora's Mask launched in Japan on April 27th, 2000, giving the player only three in-game days before the Moon crashes into Termina; every 24 hours the game interrupts play with a full-screen slide announcing which day it is and how many hours remain3. That slide is where the phrase originates as a piece of Nintendo 64 UI, not as a joke.

The meme use of the line kicked off in the early 2010s. On October 8th, 2010, YouTuber McCrackerTheCracker uploaded a short clip of the in-game "Dawn Of / The Final Day / 24 Hours Remain" slide, one of the earliest standalone reuploads of the notification as reaction content1.

How It Spread

The phrase quickly attached itself to real-world countdowns. On May 18th, 2011, a Yahoo Answers user posted the question "Dawn of the First Day 72 hours remain. May 21, 2011, are you ready?", riffing on Harold Camping's failed rapture prediction for that weekend5. It was an early sign that the Majora's Mask slide format worked as shorthand for any looming date, religious or not.

Zelda communities then adopted the imagery in bulk. On September 22nd, 2012, Redditor Rowona posted a piece titled "Dawn of the Final Day" to r/zelda 4, showing a painting of the Majora's Mask Moon, which pulled in more than 1,000 upvotes before the thread was archived4. The Moon art, rather than the text slide, became the dominant visual on Zelda subreddits.

The meme peaked around the 2012 Mayan calendar doomsday hype. On December 18th, 2012, three days before the predicted December 21st end date, the single-serving site Terrible Fate went live with a giant Majora's Mask Moon hanging over a countdown timer2. Video game remixer Theophany was behind the site, and when the counter hit zero it revealed a Bandcamp tribute album to the Majora's Mask soundtrack2. After that, "Dawn Of The Final Day" settled in as an evergreen Zelda-flavored way to say "tomorrow is the day".

How to Use This Meme

The typical format is a post made the day before a highly anticipated event, captioned with "Dawn Of The Final Day" or the full "24 Hours Remain" line1. Common conventions include pairing it with the original in-game slide screenshot, with fan art of the Majora's Mask Moon looming over a location, or with a photoshopped Moon dropped into the sky of an unrelated photo3. Zelda subreddits often bring it back around game releases, direct broadcasts or major real-world countdowns4.

Frequently Asked Questions