Don’t give traffic to reddit. Do what reddit does to everyone else: screenshot it, then post it here in a way that does not tell you the original source. But then be better than Reddit by giving attribution to the original creator. 
Interesting perspective. I don't mind using Reddit as an alternative to catbox.moe, but your approach is interesting. I'm not sure that accessing the picture directly using that link gives them that much traffic, otherwise what prevents them from just using bots to access all of the similar links to create fake traffic?
Would you have the credit to the artist? As you said, Reddit does not usually provide it.
I’m just salty about what Reddit has done recently and grinding an ax a bit. Just so you don’t think I’m coming after you or something. 
The link I clicked was a Reddit URL, so I assume it drives traffic to them. In addition, people on Reddit have a terrible habit of not crediting creators.
Reddit, among other sites like imgur, sometimes do sneaky shit with URL rewriting. Even what looks like a hotlink to an image file can actually just serve up HTML with the image somewhere in it... and, more than likely, some other shit you don't care about, like ads, consent spam, registration.
I sometimes would stick my tongue out at a child then smile. They always smiled back and I thought it would be funny if they said something about it and not being believed.
Well one day this kid started crying in a restaurant. That was the last time I did that.