Majora's Mask had nothing to do with it. Heck, a lotta people never finished that game because it was too weird.
It was the Spaceworld demo, with a badass "realistic" Link fighting Ganondorf that threw people off. Everyone went spaceballs for that little clip and I remember tons of sites back in the day, even IGN, speculating that it was SUPER SECRET FOOTAGE for an upcoming Zelda masterpiece. Lots of folks were like "no WAY is Nintendo just putting all that effort in for a demo." lol
Remember, this was an era where your typical Zelda fan was like age 10-16 and highly susceptible to the cool anime look of Adult Link in Ocarina of Time. There was also the huge idea that Nintendo had to beat Sony and fight back against their "kiddie" image. Zelda was seen as the franchise most likely to be able to accomplish this, especially after Squaresoft did a bait 'n switch and put FF7 on the PSX rather than the N64. Since the PSX ended up outselling the N64, there was even more pressure on Nintendo in the minds of hardcore fans to "get it right" with the Gamecube and come out with full guns blazing to appeal to a more mature audience.
To see that idealized dream of a mature, futuristic Zelda game be shattered with the first footage of cel-shaded Link was therefore the biggest mindfuck/tragedy ever.
Of course, nobody remembers this now, cuz Wind Waker turned out great! But the "LEGEND OF CELDA" hate threads back in the day were civil war.