What is What If Zelda Was A Girl??

It is a 4chan copypasta that pairs a gender-swapped Link drawing with the question 'what if Zelda was a girl?' to troll people who confuse Link with Princess Zelda.

Where did What If Zelda Was A Girl? come from?

An anonymous user posted it on 4chan's /tg/ board on May 22, 2010, with a feminized Link image attached.

What does What If Zelda Was A Girl? mean?

The joke exploits a common newcomer mistake: assuming the title character 'Zelda' is the playable hero, when the player actually controls Link, the male protagonist.

How do you use What If Zelda Was A Girl??

Posters typically pair the phrase with gender-swapped Link fan art and post it earnestly, fishing for angry corrections or confused replies from readers who think the poster is wrong.

Is What If Zelda Was A Girl? still popular?

The line kept circulating on 4chan boards and DeviantArt through the late 2010s and received mainstream gaming coverage from The Gamer in 2019.

What If Zelda Was A Girl?

2010copypastaclassic

Published October 5, 2026

What If Zelda Was A Girl?, also known as Link and Zelda Confusion, is a copypasta trolling line that plays on casual gamers mixing up Princess Zelda with Link, the actual male protagonist of The Legend of Zelda. An anonymous 4chan user kicked it off in May 2010 with a gender-swapped Link drawing, and the bait kept pulling in confused replies for over a decade.

zelda memes trolling memes 4chan memes copypasta memes bait and switch memes

Overview

The joke runs on a specific bit of game-literacy bait. Casual observers often assume the title character of The Legend of Zelda is the playable hero, when Zelda is the princess that Link rescues1. Posters pair the question with gender-swapped Link artwork, usually a feminine redraw of the elf in a green tunic, waiting for someone unfamiliar with the series to either correct them or get genuinely confused4.

The format shows up most on image boards and art sites, paired with fan drawings rather than photo edits2. The humor leans less on wit and more on fishing for an exasperated reply from a Zelda fan or an earnest correction from a reader who thinks the OP sincerely doesn't know the lore4. The same title-mix-up dogs Samus Aran from Metroid, often called 'Metroid' for the same reason4.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

4chan /tg/

Date

2010

The earliest documented post lands on May 22, 2010, when an anonymous user on 4chan's /tg/ (Traditional Games) board posted the exact phrase 'what if Zelda was a girl?' alongside a gender-swapped Link image1. The trolling cycle built on a long-running newcomer mixup: because the series is titled The Legend of Zelda, people who have never played assume Zelda is the protagonist rather than the princess the player saves4.

Nintendo developed the games; the earliest known meme post was made by an anonymous 4chan user whose identity is not confirmed1. Variations kept appearing on the site through the rest of 2010, usually paired with fresh gender-swapped Link fan art and the same trolling phrasing4.

How It Spread

The line kept circulating on 4chan through the early 2010s, with gender-swapped Link fan art attached to new iterations of the question5. On May 18, 2015, Redditor u/alexd281 posted an image to r/facepalm showing a shirt that read 'What if Zelda was a girl?' and expressed disbelief that anyone would get it wrong, pulling in over 470 upvotes3. The OP later admitted in a comment that same day they hadn't realized the shirt was referencing the meme itself3.

On July 19, 2019, The Gamer published a roundup titled '10 What If Zelda Were A Girl Memes That Are Too Hilarious For Words,' which marked the joke's crossover from imageboard trolling to mainstream gaming coverage2. 4chan posts using the line kept appearing on various boards through the late 2010s and early 2020s5 6, and the term became a frequent tag on DeviantArt attached to Legend of Zelda fan art7.

The meme's shelf life is tied to new generations of players discovering the series and the mix-up repeating itself, which keeps fresh targets available for the bait4.

Timeline

2010-05-22

Anonymous 4chan /tg/ user posts the earliest known 'what if Zelda was a girl?' thread with a gender-swapped Link image[1].

2015-05-18

Redditor u/alexd281 posts a 'What if Zelda was a girl?' shirt to r/facepalm, unaware it was referencing the meme[3].

2019-07-19

The Gamer publishes a list of the 10 best 'What If Zelda Were A Girl' memes[2].

2021

Fresh 4chan threads keep posting the line with new gender-swapped Link artwork[5].

How to Use This Meme

Posters typically pair the exact line 'what if Zelda was a girl?' with a gender-swapped Link illustration, often a feminine take on the green-tunic hero1. The common convention is to post it earnestly, as if sincerely wondering, which fishes for either angry corrections or genuinely confused replies from readers who think the poster is the one making the mistake4.