# Dawn Of The Final Day 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". ## 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 Termina[1]. 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 scare[3]. 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 image[1]. 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 own[3]. ## 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 weekend[5]. 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 archived[4]. 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 timer[2]. 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 soundtrack[2]. After that, "Dawn Of The Final Day" settled in as an evergreen Zelda-flavored way to say "tomorrow is the day". ## How to Use 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" line[1]. 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 photo[3]. Zelda subreddits often bring it back around game releases, direct broadcasts or major real-world countdowns[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Dawn Of The Final Day? It is a catchphrase and reaction image based on a countdown notification from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, used online to signal that a big event is about 24 hours away[1]. ### Where did Dawn Of The Final Day come from? The line is an in-game text prompt from Majora's Mask, released for the Nintendo 64 in April 2000, and reappeared as meme material starting with an October 8th, 2010 YouTube upload by McCrackerTheCracker[1]. ### What does Dawn Of The Final Day mean? Online it means "the big thing happens tomorrow", using the game's doomsday framing (the Moon crashing into Termina) as a dramatic stand-in for any looming event[3]. ### How do you use Dawn Of The Final Day? It is typically posted the day before an anticipated release, deadline or predicted doomsday, often alongside the original countdown slide or fan art of the Majora's Mask Moon[4]. ### Is Dawn Of The Final Day still popular? It settled into classic Zelda meme status after the December 2012 doomsday cycle, when the countdown site Terrible Fate used the imagery to promote a Majora's Mask tribute album[2]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wILFddYxKOM]() 2. [http://terriblefate.com/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dawn-of-the-final-day]() 4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/zelda/]() 5. [https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110517191720AAM00yq]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/dawn-of-the-final-day Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library