The smiley module is disabled by default. To enable it use M-x customize-variable RET erc-modules.
ERC Smiley mode is a tiny mode that uses ‘smiley-region’, which is defined in smiley.el, which is part of Oort Gnus.
To change the smileys, take customize the variable ‘smiley-regexp-alist’. Here is an example for your ~/.emacs, if you do not want to use custom:
(require 'smiley)
(add-to-list 'smiley-regexp-alist '("\\(:-?]\\)\\W" 1 "forced"))
(add-to-list 'smiley-regexp-alist '("\\s-\\(:-?/\\)\\W" 1 "wry"))
(add-to-list 'smiley-regexp-alist '("\\(:-?(\\)\\W" 1 "sad"))
(add-to-list 'smiley-regexp-alist '("\\((-?:\\)\\W" 1 "reverse-smile"))
(add-to-list 'smiley-regexp-alist '("\\(:-?D\\)\\W" 1 "grin"))
(add-to-list 'smiley-regexp-alist '("\\(:-?P\\)\\W" 1 "poke"))If you change the variable after having used the smileys, you need to empty the cache and update it again. Usually this is not needed, however.
;; (setq smiley-cached-regexp-alist nil)
;; (smiley-update-cache)And if you want other smileys, use ‘smiley-data-directory’ to point the smiley code at something else.