Press A to Mount

2019image macroclassic

Published September 23, 2026

Press A to Mount is an image macro built from a Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild cutscene where Princess Zelda crawls on her knees while Link stands behind her. Fans photoshopped the game's UI to add a fake 'Mount' prompt, turning an innocent flower-inspection scene into one of 2019's most-upvoted horny jokes on Reddit.

zelda memesphotoshop memeshornyposting memesdouble entendre memessubreddit origin memes

Overview

Press A to Mount is a photoshopped screenshot from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that adds a fake 'Mount' UI prompt, the kind of context-sensitive button normally reserved for horses and other animals in the game3. The joke works because Princess Zelda is crawling on her knees examining flowers while Link stands slightly behind her, so the fabricated prompt turns a wholesome cutscene into a crude sexual gag3.

The format is a single-panel image macro rather than a template, but riffs on it lean on the same visual trick, swapping in different fake UI prompts or captioning the scene to imply Link's inner monologue1. Its recognition comes from how cleanly the edited button copies Nintendo's actual UI font and layout, letting the joke read as a plausible in-game moment before the viewer clocks what is being suggested3.

Origin & Background

Platform
4chan (screenshot) / Reddit (viral edit)
Date
2019

Nintendo released Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on March 3rd, 20173. The underlying cutscene, where Link and Zelda examine luminous stones on the ground, was uploaded to YouTube by user Teenage Wildlife on March 11th, 2017 under the title 'Thicc Zelda Cutscene' and picked up more than 600,000 views over the following two years23.

A screenshot of the scene, sourced from an earlier demo build, was posted anonymously to 4chan's /v/ board on February 28th, 2017, days before the game's retail launch3. Nintendo developed the game and cutscene, but the meme edit itself, the version with the fake 'Mount' prompt spliced into the UI, was made by an unknown fan roughly two years later1.

How It Spread

For its first two years the screenshot circulated mostly as an object-labeling meme without the UI edit. An unlogged Imgur user posted an early caption riff on March 1st, 2017 that pulled in around 170 views, a modest showing that reflected how narrow the joke was before the UI trick existed3.

The format broke out in May 2019 once someone added the fake 'Mount' button. On May 9th, 2019, Redditor squiddy555 posted the edited version, which pulled in more than 60,000 upvotes within five days and cemented the 'Press A to Mount' framing as the definitive version of the joke1. From there the image became a stock reaction for expressing thirst over a woman in a submissive-looking pose, with reposts across gaming subreddits reusing the same edit rather than remixing it heavily.

The original 'Thicc Zelda Cutscene' YouTube upload kept accruing views alongside the meme's spread, giving newcomers a way to verify the scene was real footage rather than a full fabrication2. The macro is still shared as a Breath of the Wild fandom staple even though squiddy555's post is the anchor for its viral moment1.

Frequently Asked Questions