“Dawn of the Final Day” is an often ominous phrase used in preparation for an event in the near future. It’s similar to the Imminent Ned advice animal series or its snowclone form “Brace yourselves, (X) is coming.”
The phrase stems from an in-game notification that appears throughout The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, a Nintendo 64 game from the year 2000. The phrase has additionally been paired with an image of Moon from the same Zelda game.
Dawn of the Final Day origins
Dawn of the Final Day came from the game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as released for the Nintendo 64 video game system on April 27th, 2000 in Japan.
Within the context of the game, the player has three days before the moon crashes into the land of Temina, which can be avoided by the player via resetting time. The player receives a notification in-game regarding how much time is left every 24 hours.
The phrase emerged on the internet in 2010, when slide images featuring the phrase “dawn of the final day” were utilized to express anticipation for an event that was upcoming. The first instance was on October 8th, 2010, when YouTuber McCrackerTheCracker posted a video featuring a slide from Majora’s Mask which read “Dawn of / The Final Day / 24 Hours Remain.”
Dawn of the Final Day spread
Oon May 18th, 2011, a user on Yahoo Answers submitted the question “Dawn of the First Day 72 hours remain. May 21, 2011, are you ready?” This was about noted crackpot Harold Camping’s 2011 ever-changing rapture prediction.
The phrase was used online again on September 22nd, 2012 when Rowona on Reddit submitted a post titled “Dawn of the Final Day” to the /r/zelda subreddit. The post featured a painting of the Moon from Majora’s Mask. The post received over 1k upvotes and 25 comments before being archived.
A couple of months later, another doomsday prediction was upon us, this one Mayan-style. On December 18th, 2012, three days before the predicted December 21st, 2012 doomsday (as immortalized/wrongly predicted in the John Cusack romp 2012), a single service site was launched called Terrible Fate.
The site launched with a large image of Majora’s Mask placed above a countdown timer. However, it was all a ruse (which shouldn’t need to be said, but here we are), as when the countdown reached zero, a Bandcamp playlist of a Majora’s Mask tribute album appeared on the site, as created by video game remixer Theophany.
Variations on the Dawns
Image macros featuring the caption “Dawn of the final day” have been used in a variety of ways for a variety of different events, often adapting to specific timeframes. Thus, the Internet is riddled with meme examples featuring “dawn of the final day” with 12, 48, 72, and beyond number of hours remaining on the countdown.
As a result, the meme has proven incredibly versatile in the genre of “foreboding anticipation.”
Meme examples
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