> I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker

> ...

> Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite.

The grass has more melanin on the other side.

But that's the thing, it's not about "more melanin", but rather about something like:

The grass on the other side has a different amount of melanin be harder-to-achieve and thus more desirable because it previously signaled belonging to the higher socio-economical strata.