First, every mathematical theorem is a tautology ... don't conflate "tautological" with "obvious".

Second, your "aka" is incorrect --- there is all sorts of clumping that is not a normal distribution.

As I'm sure tsunamifury would agree, it is incredibly common for people to label "bell curves" by eyeball, regardless of whether they are normal curves. To most people, "clumping" in a one-dimensional spectrum is all they mean by the phrase "bell curve".