One trend that I am seeing recently in a couple of movies is that 'Euro/Asian' bikes are becoming more prominent.
In the Arby's Commercial, the bank robbers are using sports bikes.
In Tron: Legacy, one featured bike is a Ducati.
In 'The Expendables', Jason Statham and Charisma Carpenter are seen a sport bike (Ducati I think), and are both wearing helmets.
My point being that Harleys are starting to become 'tired', and as such are less interesting to the younger crowd. The days of 'Easy Rider' are now 'olden times', especially amongst our youth.
What makes me happy is that more of the younger set are embracing gear (although still not nearly enough, gene pool thinning arguments aside). Amongst our local group, we keep gently preaching the mantra, and are more than willing to share our 'accidents in gear, and what might have happened if I hadn't had 'x' on' experiences.
I didn't know I needed to spend $50k to be a real biker, though. I'll get right on that. In the meantime, this thread/YouTube clip pretty much sums up the 'prevailing' cruiser mentality:
http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=3933.0