About
I’m Getting Excited (Japanese: テンション上がってきた, Tension Agatte Kita) refers to a blurry photo taken from a TV interview with Ichiro Suzuki. Since 2006, this quote with a blurry head has been one of the popular expressions for Japanese internet users’ excitement.
Origin
This meme originated from an interview with Ichiro at Safeco Field, the home stadium of the Seattle Mariners that he was belonging to. A screenshot of Ichiro coincidentally shaking his head was taken by a Japanese internet user. And, the caption in this screenshot is his answer to interviewer “I’m getting excited”.
“I’m getting excited”
In the Japanese language, “Tension” (テンション) is a loanword from English which means degrees of excitement or motivation, and it has no negative nuance. For example, Hi-tension (テンションが高い, Tenshyon ga takai) is meaning of “Excited”, and Low-tension (テンションが低い,Tenshyon ga hikui) is meaning of “Not excited” or “Unmotivated”. However, it’s a casual expression which is seldom heard in interviews with middle-aged athletes like Ichiro even in those days.
Spread
It’s unclear when this interview was aired. But this photo began circulating on the Japanese web in the late of July 2006. The most well-known host of this screenshot is a Japanese image uploader pya! which posted it on 23rd of that month[1], and it was reprinted to many 2channel related blogs’ posts via funny picture threads in that textboard community. Peoples were soon fascinated by surrealistic lulz of this photo, that was caused by the contrast of Ichiro’s quite normal facial expression in strange blurry photo and that catchy remark. Then, a photo collage fad inspired by ichiro’s blurry head started in the Japanese imageboard community Futaba Channel (2chan). “Getting Excited” picture generators were also released in the following years.[2][3]
Before / After
In addition, Ichiro’s blurred headshaking photo became to one of the formulae of expressing excitement in online parodies throughout sharing of his picture and collaged photos. Japanese illustrators community pixiv has over a hundred of illustration tagged under this catchphrase[4], and many of them utilize headshaking to express characters’ extraordinary excitement.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]pya! – ｷﾀ━━━━━(ﾟ(ﾟ∀(ﾟ∀ﾟ(☆∀☆)ﾟ∀ﾟ)∀ﾟ)ﾟ)━━━━━!! 旧作品No.30524 / Posted on 07-23-2006 (Japanese)
[2]工学ナビの中の人の研究と周辺 – イチローの「テンション上がってきた」を再現するソフト / Posted on 06-08-2007 (Japanese)
[3]黒羊工房 – テンション上がってきたジェネレーターβ版 / Launched in 2007
[4]pixiv – Search results for the tag テンション上がってきた