Depends on what you mean by absurd really. “Freak accident” like drowning in a rain barrel or geting smacked by a white hot meteorite wouldn’t really be less “dignified” than being the innocent death in a car crash. I’m more likely to think of self-induced deaths like smokers who die of lung cancer, or habitual drinkers who finally overestimate their driving skill to be upsetting–possibly because as a “friend” I failed to disuade the behavior. Sure you can’t live someone’s life for them, but you can still feel guilty about not having intervened.
But “Darwin Award” deaths of the “Hey Mynn, watch this…” variety? I dunno. I think the degree of friendship would be the major factor to decide how upset I’d be. If it was truly stupid, like the chainsaw dare, I don’t think it’d matter because you’d know that the person was odd enough to get into that situation long before it actually happened. I think I’d be expecting jokes if it were potentially funny in a dark humor kind of way. Some of us choose to laugh at misery, others to cry–who am I to tell someone else how to cope?
Sure, I laugh at some of the Darwins. Not out of disrespect for the decedent but because it is the pinnacle of slapstick humor.