this was the first thing i thought of when i read that comic

Twilight Sparkle has 6 best friends.
 
Everypony else has just one best friend. Twilight Sparkle.

@Whatevs  
It’s a tv show; you should really just relax. Comparing works of art is what fandoms are for.

“Ticket Master” carried an aesop about how you can’t just choose one friend over another, and given that it was the third episode, showing Twilight favoring one friend over the others would have been bad for the dynamic. With three seasons down, though, they can be shown together in smaller pairings without anyone leaping to conclusions.
 
And frankly, the Mane 6 are not joined at the hip. They don’t need to be together all the time. The GGG was a very spectacular event they all wanted to attend, but Applejack went to the rodeo on her own, Rarity went to Canterlot by herself and Rainbow Dash intended to bring only Fluttershy along to the Best Flyers Competition. You don’t have to bring all your friends if they have other things to do (like working the farm, or store) and story-wise, there’s little need to bring extra chgaracters if they’re not contributing to the story.
 
In fact, that’s what bothered me about “Under The Sparkling Sea”: the only one who was important to the narrative was Rainbow Dash, and possibly Twilight as a royal envoy. The other four had minimal importance and only popped up to say something now and then to remind the readers that they were still there. And if you need to tell the readers every third page “Rarity is still here”, then she doesn’t actually need to be there. Sometimes you want to keep your narrative sleek and uncluttered.

going to see a clown isn’t exactly the same as THE once-a-year major social event.

Maybe comparing episodes to comics when they are done by different people and the situation in question is merely a framing device for the story is dumb?
 
Who am I kidding, people are just mad that it’s happening to their favorite characters. Completely oblivious to how hypocritical they are.  
I guess I should stop ranting.

Twilight Sparkle is still a virgin.

rainbow dash would say its boring  
fluttershy would hate the large crowd  
applejack is a workaholic  
rarity would think its not ‘cultured’

Well she did say Twilight is her bestest friend now didn’t she?