I was just discussing this with some internet friends.
I didn't use UseNet in college (94-98) but I did go to GenCon while there (sadly I honestly can't tell you which year we went in that 3 year span, but I was with the L5R RPG booth and a L5R RPG betatester etc, so, we were in the Exhibition room), and in one silly mindset, I went and had buttons made at the buttonmaker. We were big Mage players, and at the time only had the original book. We had been discussing how rediculously OP Mages were, essentially, to Vamps, (e - what would happen if you mixed two systems?) and as they had no Life (the stat, hurr), and weren't Sleepers, they wouldn't generate paradox if you cast completely vulgar spells on them, as long as there were no witnesses. From that discussion came "You'd only need three dots in Matter to turn a vampire into a lawnchair."
So the first button read "Matter 3: You are a lawnchair".
We then ran around Gencon finding VtM LARPers, and tried to turn them into lawnchairs. Because Pixie Sticks and Caffeine.
Some of the LARPers at the con got it and would play along wth the joke (which essentially was to awkwardly pose themselves like a lawnchair at which point I'd try to sit on him - after all, these were cons). Some wuold get insanely uppity and yell. Someone else pointed out "Well, you need matter and spirit, otherwise the vampire would stilll think it was a vampire."
Then my friend was wearing, after another visit back to the buttonmaker, "Spirit 3: You think you are a lawnchair."
Later after that Gencon I had heard that some erratas and stuff were published saying you can't turn vamps into lawnchairs. I'd never seen them myself and never researched it as I was busy at that point getting my degree and it wasn't that important, it was just a highfive to my friend Kris and a "Ha! We got them to make an errata!"
Now, whether we initiated it (news at Gencon can spread FAR to a lot of ears in what's essentially a tight knit community) or I absorbed by somehow unconciously overhearing it from someone AT GenCon, no idea. But I was pretty sure up till today that, to my embarrassment, that Vampires and lawnchairs edit; add "Being blown up into a way bigger deal than it may have been - I know for a fact I was not at GenCon in 93) is all my fault. :(
It was realistically, a hilarious con joke that confronted with people taking things way too seriously, went "horribly wrong".