UWM Alumna's Haunted Water Videos Hit 45 Million Views

Geo Rutherford is currently managing a demanding schedule to produce 31 days of social media content focused on what she terms “haunted hydrology.” The project, known as Spooky Lake Month, enters its seventh season this year. Last October, these videos garnered approximately 45 million views across Instagram and TikTok.

Rutherford, an alumna of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, creates videos that blend earth science with a mysterious presentation style. Her topics range from Great Lakes shipwrecks to Lake Natron in Tanzania, where caustic brine calcifies creatures on the shore. She also covers Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the world's oldest and deepest lake, and the biological process of adipocere formation in cold freshwater.

The format relies on a specific aesthetic. Rutherford appears in her videos with only the top of her face visible, a choice she jokes makes her look like a disembodied forehead. She pairs this visual with spooky music and a hypnotic delivery. Her first video of each season typically shows her walking out of a lake to deliver her signature line, “Um, yes, hello.”

Rutherford describes the name Spooky Lake Month as a misnomer. “There’s no ghosts, and there’s no ghouls. It’s Mother Nature being spooky all by herself,” she said. Her primary goal is to educate viewers about bodies of water and earth science, though she admits the content is designed to be creepy rather than dry.

Her interest in water began during the COVID-19 pandemic while she was a graduate student in the Printmaking and Book Arts program at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts. She completed a thesis project titled “On the Threshold of the Great Lakes,” which originated from a daily 90-day visit to Milwaukee’s Bradford Beach. During this period, she collected items that washed ashore, acting as a detective gathering clues about pollution, erosion, and invasive species.

The thesis resulted in a handmade artist book that included a box holding test tubes filled with collected items such as crinoid fossils, zebra mussels, and plastic fragments. Rutherford studied under Max Yela, the retired head of Special Collection at UWM Libraries, who encouraged students to question the definition of a book. “He constantly wanted you to question the definition of ‘book’ and how you can stretch or redefine that definition,” Rutherford said.

A TikTok video showcasing this thesis book received over one million views. Rutherford noted that the video went viral because viewers were confused by its format. “You either make people really mad, or you make them very confused,” she said. “That video went viral because everybody was like, ‘Ma’am, that is not a book.’”

The success of that initial post led Rutherford to produce more videos about the Great Lakes. Her background in earth science is familial; her mother, Sandra, holds a PhD in geology and taught middle school earth science. Rutherford, whose full name is Georgina, taught high school art in Michigan for five years before pursuing her MFA. She was drawn to UWM’s program after meeting Jessica Meuninck-Ganger, the program head and a former high school art teacher.

Rutherford now lives on Fish Lake in Sauk City, Wisconsin, a location that fits her thematic interests. In 2019, rising water levels flooded several homes on the shore, leaving abandoned structures submerged in the lake. During the 2025 season, she posted a video of herself and her mother kayaking to inspect the houses. “The owners left everything,” Rutherford said. “There are Crock-Pots and couches and fans and refrigerators. It’s crazy.”

The social media phenomenon has also led to a publishing career. Rutherford wrote and illustrated “Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes That Dot Our Planet.” A second book, “Spooky Rivers: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes That Snake Around Our Planet,” was released in bookstores in September. She records and edits most of her videos on the same day they are posted, a process she calls an ADHD-fueled marathon.

The 2026 season concludes this week. Rutherford will post the final video of the series on Nov. 1, which will feature her descending back into the lake until the next fall.