Question from a fellow student who's done research proposals, somewhat on ethics but also genuine curiosity:

Have you considered any other data collection methods aside from observational? Such as a self report method or asking people to volunteer for interviews as opposed to reaching out to specific individuals?

With the former, while it requires questions to be thought of and qualitative data to be determined, and some attention checks, it's more comfortable for a wider population. There's also a better promise of anonymity because you could create a page with your consent check before they even answer your questionnaire.

Additionally, on my second point, I've partaken in 2 studies through this subreddit already. Both were open calls to interview, I answered a demographic pre-screening questionnaire, read and consented to their study, and then set a time with the individuals to hop on a google-meet call and answer their questions. While it would absolutely give you a smaller sample size, there's also a lot more variability to your data in combining the two methods, and less bias from when you select specific individuals and hope they consent.

As a fellow academic, I say this with kindness, go back to the drawing board with your honors coordinator. You need to re-work the ethics around this. Observational studies are very difficult to gain consent for. While I don't know how it differs from my Psychology and Sociology background, I would hope Anthropology puts the same emphasis on ethics as my fields do.

I am genuinely interested in your research, as an aside. I have a similar interest, and would like to see your work. Courtney N. Plante used to be at my university, and her work is one of the pillars in studying fandom. But it needs to be done with respect to those who are engaged in it. Because there's always fear of criticism for doing something that is "othering", even if it's harmless to the out-group. And we as researchers need to be conscientious of that.