I kinda agree, kinda disagree. MLP has always been a mixture of episodic and serialized stories. The very first episode is about the ponies meeting, and the second is about them being invited to a gala. Throughout season 1, there are multiple episodes about them getting ready for the gala, and in the season finale, they finally attend it. Later seasons follow a similar trend where there's a continuous story (sometimes multiple) with episodic stories in between.
Edit: Forgot to post this screencap from the Discord, which was the entire reason I came here in the first place
View attachment 1605434
The poor guy didn't even get a chance to explain himself. All he did was question Riley's pronouns and got instabanned.