I Am The Storm That Is Approaching

2020Audio meme / catchphrasesemi-active

Also known as: Bury the Light meme

I Am The Storm That Is Approaching is a 2020 audio meme of "Bury the Light," Vergil's Devil May Cry 5 battle theme composed by Casey Edwards, widely remixed into dramatic video edits.

"I Am The Storm That Is Approaching" is an audio meme built around the bridge lyrics of "Bury the Light," Vergil's battle theme from Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition. Composed by Casey Edwards with vocals by Victor Borba, the track debuted in the game's September 2020 trailer and immediately became source material for YouTube edits and audio overlays1. The specific lyric turned into a go-to audio clip for dramatic or comedic video remixes, with the original song upload crossing 50 million views within two years2.

devil may cry memesaudio memesvideo game music memesgaming

Overview

The meme centers on "Bury the Light," an intense vocal track that serves as the battle theme for Vergil, Dante's twin brother, in Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition3. The song's bridge section, where Victor Borba belts out "I am the storm that is approaching, provoking black clouds in isolation," is the portion creators sample most often1. The format typically involves overlaying this audio onto unrelated footage for dramatic or comedic effect, following a pattern established by the earlier DMC5 meme hit "Pull My Devil Trigger." The humor comes from the clash between the operatic intensity of the vocals and whatever mundane or unexpected visuals accompany them.

The Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition trailer dropped on September 16, 2020, on the official Devil May Cry YouTube channel, revealing Vergil as a playable character1. "Bury the Light" kicks in around the 25-second mark when the title card appears on screen. Casey Edwards composed the track, with Victor Borba providing the powerful vocals3.

The meme format emerged almost immediately. On September 17, 2020, YouTube channel Tomokose uploaded what is widely considered the first meme edit, splicing Romeo Cannady's "Y'all Mind If I Praise The Lord" into the Vergil gameplay trailer1. That mashup pulled in over 2 million views within two years.

Four days after the trailer, on September 20, 2020, the full song was uploaded to the DevilHunter music YouTube channel, giving creators easy access to the audio1. The upload quickly became one of the most-viewed video game soundtrack uploads on the platform.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition trailer)
Key People
Casey Edwards, Victor Borba, Tomokose
Date
2020

The Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition trailer dropped on September 16, 2020, on the official Devil May Cry YouTube channel, revealing Vergil as a playable character. "Bury the Light" kicks in around the 25-second mark when the title card appears on screen. Casey Edwards composed the track, with Victor Borba providing the powerful vocals.

The meme format emerged almost immediately. On September 17, 2020, YouTube channel Tomokose uploaded what is widely considered the first meme edit, splicing Romeo Cannady's "Y'all Mind If I Praise The Lord" into the Vergil gameplay trailer. That mashup pulled in over 2 million views within two years.

Four days after the trailer, on September 20, 2020, the full song was uploaded to the DevilHunter music YouTube channel, giving creators easy access to the audio. The upload quickly became one of the most-viewed video game soundtrack uploads on the platform.

How It Spread

With the full track freely available, creators zeroed in on the bridge section as their go-to clip. On October 27, 2020, YouTube channel Jordan posted footage of a storm chaser struggling to exit his car during a storm, overlaid with the "I am the storm that is approaching" audio. The literal visual match made the joke land perfectly, and the video crossed 1 million views in two years.

The audio format kept finding new life whenever music-adjacent trends gained traction on social media. During the mid-2022 "Max's Favorite Song" trend from Stranger Things Season 4, creator GigaCheddar uploaded an edit on July 5, 2022, swapping in the "Bury the Light" audio. The crossover earned over 467,000 views and 34,000 likes in just two weeks.

Beyond YouTube, the phrase itself spread as a text-based meme. Urban Dictionary entries describe it as something people type to "describe how cool the context is," and note its use as a form of bait-and-switch humor. Gaming communities adopted the line as a hype callout, dropping it in chat whenever someone was about to go off in competitive play.

Media

How to Use This Meme

The format typically follows one of two patterns:

1

Audio overlay on dramatic footage: Find a video clip with intense, chaotic, or impressive visuals. Layer the bridge section of "Bury the Light" over it. The more literal or absurd the visual match, the better the joke lands.

2

Character or gameplay edit: Take footage of a character doing something powerful. Edit them into DMC5-style gameplay or photoshop them into a Vergil pose, with "Bury the Light" playing underneath.

3

Text-based hype: Type "I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING" in all caps during an intense gaming moment or when someone is about to go hard at something.

Cultural Impact

The original "Bury the Light" upload surpassed 50 million views within two years of release, making it one of the most popular video game soundtrack uploads on YouTube. The song's virality drove renewed interest in Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition, as people who had never played the game discovered the franchise through meme edits.

The meme also drew attention to Casey Edwards as a composer and Victor Borba as a vocalist, since their work was circulating far beyond the audience that would normally encounter a video game soundtrack. The track's crossover into non-gaming meme spaces, like the Stranger Things "Max's Favorite Song" trend, showed that the audio had enough standalone energy to work completely divorced from its DMC context.

Fun Facts

The first meme edit appeared just one day after the trailer dropped, on September 17, 2020.

In Devil May Cry lore, Vergil is Dante's twin brother and Nero's father, making the "storm" imagery a fitting reference to his destructive, isolationist character arc.

"Bury the Light" follows a tradition set by "Devil Trigger," Nero's DMC5 theme, which was also heavily memed, creating a pattern of DMC battle themes going viral on release.

The phrase works as both a hype callout and a form of bait-and-switch humor, depending on the context.

Derivatives & Variations

Storm chaser edits:

Real storm footage with the audio overlay became its own sub-genre after the Jordan channel edit in October 2020[1].

Max's Favorite Song crossover:

The Stranger Things Season 4 trend in mid-2022 spawned dedicated "Bury the Light" mashup edits blending two viral audio formats[1].

"Y'all Mind If I Praise The Lord" mashup:

Tomokose's original September 2020 edit, combining Romeo Cannady's viral clip with the DMC5 trailer, became a template for similar worship/gaming crossover content[1].

Text copypasta:

The full bridge lyrics ("I am the storm that is approaching / provoking black clouds in isolation") became a copypasta used in gaming chats and comment sections[3].

Frequently Asked Questions

I Am The Storm That Is Approaching

2020Audio meme / catchphrasesemi-active

Also known as: Bury the Light meme

I Am The Storm That Is Approaching is a 2020 audio meme of "Bury the Light," Vergil's Devil May Cry 5 battle theme composed by Casey Edwards, widely remixed into dramatic video edits.

"I Am The Storm That Is Approaching" is an audio meme built around the bridge lyrics of "Bury the Light," Vergil's battle theme from Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition. Composed by Casey Edwards with vocals by Victor Borba, the track debuted in the game's September 2020 trailer and immediately became source material for YouTube edits and audio overlays. The specific lyric turned into a go-to audio clip for dramatic or comedic video remixes, with the original song upload crossing 50 million views within two years.

devil may cry memes audio memes video game music memes gaming

Overview

The meme centers on "Bury the Light," an intense vocal track that serves as the battle theme for Vergil, Dante's twin brother, in Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition. The song's bridge section, where Victor Borba belts out "I am the storm that is approaching, provoking black clouds in isolation," is the portion creators sample most often. The format typically involves overlaying this audio onto unrelated footage for dramatic or comedic effect, following a pattern established by the earlier DMC5 meme hit "Pull My Devil Trigger." The humor comes from the clash between the operatic intensity of the vocals and whatever mundane or unexpected visuals accompany them.

The Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition trailer dropped on September 16, 2020, on the official Devil May Cry YouTube channel, revealing Vergil as a playable character. "Bury the Light" kicks in around the 25-second mark when the title card appears on screen. Casey Edwards composed the track, with Victor Borba providing the powerful vocals.

The meme format emerged almost immediately. On September 17, 2020, YouTube channel Tomokose uploaded what is widely considered the first meme edit, splicing Romeo Cannady's "Y'all Mind If I Praise The Lord" into the Vergil gameplay trailer. That mashup pulled in over 2 million views within two years.

Four days after the trailer, on September 20, 2020, the full song was uploaded to the DevilHunter music YouTube channel, giving creators easy access to the audio. The upload quickly became one of the most-viewed video game soundtrack uploads on the platform.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition trailer)
Key People
Casey Edwards, Victor Borba, Tomokose
Date
2020

The Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition trailer dropped on September 16, 2020, on the official Devil May Cry YouTube channel, revealing Vergil as a playable character. "Bury the Light" kicks in around the 25-second mark when the title card appears on screen. Casey Edwards composed the track, with Victor Borba providing the powerful vocals.

The meme format emerged almost immediately. On September 17, 2020, YouTube channel Tomokose uploaded what is widely considered the first meme edit, splicing Romeo Cannady's "Y'all Mind If I Praise The Lord" into the Vergil gameplay trailer. That mashup pulled in over 2 million views within two years.

Four days after the trailer, on September 20, 2020, the full song was uploaded to the DevilHunter music YouTube channel, giving creators easy access to the audio. The upload quickly became one of the most-viewed video game soundtrack uploads on the platform.

How It Spread

With the full track freely available, creators zeroed in on the bridge section as their go-to clip. On October 27, 2020, YouTube channel Jordan posted footage of a storm chaser struggling to exit his car during a storm, overlaid with the "I am the storm that is approaching" audio. The literal visual match made the joke land perfectly, and the video crossed 1 million views in two years.

The audio format kept finding new life whenever music-adjacent trends gained traction on social media. During the mid-2022 "Max's Favorite Song" trend from Stranger Things Season 4, creator GigaCheddar uploaded an edit on July 5, 2022, swapping in the "Bury the Light" audio. The crossover earned over 467,000 views and 34,000 likes in just two weeks.

Beyond YouTube, the phrase itself spread as a text-based meme. Urban Dictionary entries describe it as something people type to "describe how cool the context is," and note its use as a form of bait-and-switch humor. Gaming communities adopted the line as a hype callout, dropping it in chat whenever someone was about to go off in competitive play.

Media

How to Use This Meme

The format typically follows one of two patterns:

1

Audio overlay on dramatic footage: Find a video clip with intense, chaotic, or impressive visuals. Layer the bridge section of "Bury the Light" over it. The more literal or absurd the visual match, the better the joke lands.

2

Character or gameplay edit: Take footage of a character doing something powerful. Edit them into DMC5-style gameplay or photoshop them into a Vergil pose, with "Bury the Light" playing underneath.

3

Text-based hype: Type "I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING" in all caps during an intense gaming moment or when someone is about to go hard at something.

Cultural Impact

The original "Bury the Light" upload surpassed 50 million views within two years of release, making it one of the most popular video game soundtrack uploads on YouTube. The song's virality drove renewed interest in Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition, as people who had never played the game discovered the franchise through meme edits.

The meme also drew attention to Casey Edwards as a composer and Victor Borba as a vocalist, since their work was circulating far beyond the audience that would normally encounter a video game soundtrack. The track's crossover into non-gaming meme spaces, like the Stranger Things "Max's Favorite Song" trend, showed that the audio had enough standalone energy to work completely divorced from its DMC context.

Fun Facts

The first meme edit appeared just one day after the trailer dropped, on September 17, 2020.

In Devil May Cry lore, Vergil is Dante's twin brother and Nero's father, making the "storm" imagery a fitting reference to his destructive, isolationist character arc.

"Bury the Light" follows a tradition set by "Devil Trigger," Nero's DMC5 theme, which was also heavily memed, creating a pattern of DMC battle themes going viral on release.

The phrase works as both a hype callout and a form of bait-and-switch humor, depending on the context.

Derivatives & Variations

Storm chaser edits:

Real storm footage with the audio overlay became its own sub-genre after the Jordan channel edit in October 2020[1].

Max's Favorite Song crossover:

The Stranger Things Season 4 trend in mid-2022 spawned dedicated "Bury the Light" mashup edits blending two viral audio formats[1].

"Y'all Mind If I Praise The Lord" mashup:

Tomokose's original September 2020 edit, combining Romeo Cannady's viral clip with the DMC5 trailer, became a template for similar worship/gaming crossover content[1].

Text copypasta:

The full bridge lyrics ("I am the storm that is approaching / provoking black clouds in isolation") became a copypasta used in gaming chats and comment sections[3].

Frequently Asked Questions