Meaning
What does Dawn of the Final Day mean?
Dawn of the Final Day is a popular online expression, that is used to signify the expectation of an event.
Online, it is often seen as a screenshot from “The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask”, sometimes edited to feature the Moon from the game, with its eery face.
The meme can also be encountered as a reaction image macro or GIF, or paired with the original sound effect, heard in the game.
Origin
What's the origin of Dawn of the Final Day?
“The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask” was released on Nintendo 64 in Japan on April 287th, 2000.
In the game, the player is tasked with saving the land of “Termina” from the impending doom of the Moon crashing down.
Link, the hero of the game has three days to complete his task of resetting time, and players receive a notification every time a day has passed, noting the number of remaining hours.
A screenshot of the notification was used as early as 2010 as a meme for anticipating the arrival of an event.
Spread & Usage
How did Dawn of the Final Day spread?
A clip of the notification was uploaded to YouTube by McCrackerTheCracker on October 8th, 2010.
“Dawn of the Final Day” was referenced in a Yahoo Answers post on May 18th, 2011, in anticipation of the upcoming Rapture Day on May 21st, 2011.
Various fanarts were also inspired by the phrase, emerging on sites like Tumblr, Reddit, Imgur as well as DeviantART.
Edits of the original screenshot have also become popular online, with modifications of the number of remaining hours, to suit the needs of a reaction image, leading to the creation of “Dawn of the final day – X hour remains” memes.
The expression was first defined on Urban Dictionary in 2013, with another entry following in 2018.
